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A  Series  of  Biographical  Studies  presenting  the 
lives  and  work  of  certain  representative  histori- 
cal characters,  about  whom  have  gathered  the 
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GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 
From  the  portrait  by  Gilbert  Stuart. 


GEORGE  WASHINGTON 

PATRIOT,  SOLDIER,  STATESMAN 

FIRST  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 


BY 


JAMES  A.   HARRISON 
\x 

PROFESSOR   IN   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF  VIRGINIA  ;     AUTHOR   OF        THf 
STORY  OF  GREECE,"  BTC. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S   SONS 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 

a?  WEST  TWENTY-THIRD  STREET  34  BEDFORD  STREET,  STRAND 

${jt  $iniih«boch«  flrtss 
1906 


5V- 


COPYRIGHT,  1906 

BY 
'    G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


•Cbe  •fcnicfceibocfccr  press,  flew 


To 

L.  L.  H.  AND  J.  L.  H., 

THE  Two 

WHO  HAVE  CONTRIBUTED  MOST 
To  RENDER  THIS  WORK  POSSIBLE 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


IT  gives  the  author  great  pleasure  to  acknowledge 
here  the  help  afforded  him  in  the  preparation  of  this 
work  by  Mr.  J.  P.  Kennedy,  State  Librarian,  Rich- 
mond, Virginia ;  Mr.  John  S.  Patton,  Librarian  of  the 
University  of  Virginia ;  Miss  Anna  S.  Tuttle,  Assist- 
ant Librarian  of  the  University ;  and  Mr.  R.  Walton 
Moore  of  Fairfax,  Virginia ;  and,  above  all,  to  Mrs. 
J.  A.  Harrison  for  invaluable  assistance  of  every  kind 
always  cheerfully  rendered. 

It  would  be  useless  to  enumerate  the  countless  de- 
tails of  the  Washington  Bibliography  in  constructing 
even  a  brief  narrative  like  this :  suffice  it  to  say  that 
Washington's  own  Writings  in  the  exhaustive  and 
accurate  edition  of  W.  C.  Ford  form  the  chief  source 
of  the  author's  statements ;  and  to  these  must  be  added 
the  illuminating  works  of  Fiske,  Bancroft,  McMaster, 
Winsor,  Woodrow  Wilson,  Lecky,  Trevelyan,  P.  L. 
Ford,  and  Hapgood ;  Marshall,  Lodge,  and  G.  W.  P. 
Custis. 

J.  A.  H. 
UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA 

February  22,  1906 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  I. 
"Ax  THE  FIRESIDE"      ..... 

Emigration  to  New  World — Differences  between 
Old  and  New  World — Struggles — Explorers — Vir- 
ginia in  early  times — Birth  of  Washington — 
"Wakefield" — Marian  Harland  on  Washington's 
birthplace — Washington's  youth — His  mother — 
G.  W.  P.  Custis  on  Madam  Washington — Anecdote 
of  Washington — Mary  Ball's  features — Death  of 
Augustine  Washington — The  widow — Washington's 
boyhood  and  early  education — Surveying  and 
mathematics — Hardships — "Rules  of  Civility" — At 
Fredericksburg — Mount  Vernon — Marye's  school — 
Willis  on  Washington  as  a  school -boy. 

CHAPTER  II. 
GREENWAY  COURT 

Col.  Beverley  on  Virginia — Its  population  and 
exploration — Tobacco — Hugh  Jones  on  Virginia — 
"No  popery" — Character  of  Virginians — Thomas, 
Lord  Fairfax — Philip  Bruce  on  Virginia — "Green- 
way  Court" — Mrs.  Pryor's  description — "Ferry 
Farm" — Mary  Washington — The  Fairfaxes  of 
Belvoir — Admiral  Vernon  and  "grog" — Marriages  in 
Virginia — Washington  family — The  navy  selected 
for  George — His  uncle  and  mother  object — Em- 
ployed as  surveyor  by  Lord  Fairfax — Character  of 
his  mind — His  name — Salary — First-love — Verses. 


viii  Contents 

CHAPTER  III. 

A  BOY'S  JOURNAL  .....  34 
M.  D.  Conway  on  Washington — The  "Lowland 
Beauty" — Mary  Cary — Poetry — Washington's  char- 
acter— Lord  Fairfax — Woodrow  Wilson  on  Fair- 
fax and  the  pioneer  life — Washington's  Journal 
— Describes  his  surveyor's  expedition  and  life — The 
American  wilderness — Indians — Adventures. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
WASHINGTON'S  UNIVERSITY  ...         46 

Early  education  of  Washington — Xenophon,  Plu- 
tarch, Fenelon,  Goethe — Pioneer  population — 
Jacques  Cartier — Indians  in  Virginia — Expansion  of 
colonial  life — Outdoor  life — Death  of  Lawrence 
Washington — George  accompanies  him  to  Bar- 
badoes — Small-pox — Inherits  brother's  estates — 
"The  Strenuous  Life" — A  "King  George's  man" — 
The  French — First  American  congress — The  Mon- 
ongahela  and  Alleghany — The  Ohio — Fort  Erie 
— Washington  sent  by  Dinwiddie  to  negotiate  with 
the  French — Character  of  Dinwiddie — Expansion  of 
France — Washington's  account  of  his  mission — 
The  journey — A  striking  story — Its  educational 
value — Lieutenant-Colonel — His  address  to  the  Half - 
-  King — A  pioneer  diplomat — Indian  methods — The 
Scotch-Irish — Self-educated  soldiers. 

CHAPTER  V. 
PROLOGUE  TO  A  FOREST  TRAGEDY  .          .         64 

Inclination  to  war — Dangers — French  aggressions 
— Fort  Duquesne — Dinwiddie' s  selection  of  Wash- 
ington and  Fry — Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle — 
Diplomacy  of  the  i8th  century — The  Georgian  Age 
— The  Ohio  Company — The  Bourbon  Alliance — 
Washington's  brothers  Lawrence  and  Augustine — 


Contents  ix 

Salary  of  Washington — Coming  of  Braddock — Din- 
widdie's  instructions — Col.  Fry — Trent — Washing- 
ton first  in  command  after  Fry's  death — Hardships — 
Washington's  description  of  them — Death  of  the 
French  commander — The  Half -King — Consequences 
of  the  French  invasion — Dinwiddie's  account  of 
the  defeat — Washington  captured  at  Fort  Necessity 
— Letter  to  his  brother — The  London  Magazine — 
Alarm  of  the  colonies — Power  of  France  and  Eng- 
land— The  two  fleets  sail — Braddock  sails  for  Vir- . 
ginia — His  presentiment — Franklin's  advice  to  him 
— A  "milk-maid's  dream" — Council  of  governors 
— Franklin's  assistance — Franklin  and  Washington 
contrasted. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

IN  THE  TRAGICAL  WOOD        .  ...         86 

Washington  appointed  aide  to  Braddock — Corre- 
spondence thereon — The  expedition  starts — Delays 
— Ignorance  of  the  commanders — Hewing  the  way 
— Strategic  mistakes — Parkman  describes  the  march 
— Braddock  ambuscaded — What  Washington  says 
of  the  attack — Braddock's  numbers — Indian  sub- 
tlety— Horrors  of  the  defeat — Massacre  of  the  Eng- 
lish— Braddock  killed — Retreat  of  the  English — 
Washington's  letters  on  the  Battle  of  the  Mononga- 
hela. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  WIDOW  CUSTIS      .....       103 

The  fate  of  Braddock — Humiliation  of  Washington 
— Franklin  on  the  British  regulars — Washington 
appointed  Colonel — His  remuneration — Distress  of 
the  times — Washington's  style  as  a  writer — Frontier- 


x  Contents 

bred  commanders — War  against  France — The  Shen- 
andoah  Valley — Atkin  put  over  Washington — Or- 
ders against  profanity  and  drunkenness — Straits  of 
the  inhabitants — Condition  of  the  frontier — "The 
Destroyer  of  Cities" — Washington  becomes  the 
popular  toast — Lord  Loudon — The  census  of  Vir- 
ginia at  this  time — Dinwiddie  leaves  for  England — 
111  health  of  Washington — Meets  the  Widow  Custis 
— His  letter — Her  character  and  appearance — Her 
family  and  first  husband — Courtship  and  marriage 
described  by  her  grandson — Old  St.  Peter's — Mrs. 
Carrington  describes  Mrs.  Washington — Two  views 
of  Mrs.  Washington — Theory  of  John  Adams — Date 
of  the  marriage — Life  at  Mount  Vernon  and  "The 
White  House." 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
ARCADY      .  ......        125 

Mount  Vernon — Burnaby's  Travels — Washington's 
honeymoon — Washington  orders  articles  from  Lon- 
don— Letters  and  invoices — Arcadian  life — Thanked 
by  House  of  Burgesses — Passion  for  horses — Pop- 
ularity— The  Washington  coach — Scenes  on  the 
Potomac — Life  in  Old  Virginia — Fithian's  account. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
THE  GOLDEN  MILESTONE         ....        146 

Address  of  his  fellow-officers  to  Washington — 
Williamsburg  before  the  Revolution — Lord  Bote- 
tourt — Society  at  the  Middle  Plantation — Portrait 
by  Peale — Fox-hunting — ' '  Jackie ' '  Custis  —  The 
Dismal  Swamp  scheme — Interest  in  navigation — 
Lord  Dunmore  —  Old  Pohick  Church  —  Bishop 
Meade's  account — Washington  a  vestryman — 
His  belief  in  Christianity — A  communicant — Death 
of  Miss  Custis.  ?ij« 


Contents  xi 

CHAPTER  X. 

OLD  WlLLIAMSBURG        .  .'''.'          .        .  163 

Virginia's  three  capitals — Jamestown — Williams- 
burg  described  by  Burnaby — Lossing's  account — 
William  and  Mary  College — The  Palace — The  Gar- 
dens— Bruton  Church  and  the  Powder  Horn — Hugh 
Jones's  description  of  the  town — The  Ciphers  "W." 
and  "M. " — The  Capitol — Social  life — Jefferson's 
account  of  the  removal  of  the  capital  to  Richmond 
— Jefferson's  career  at  William  and  Mary  College 
— Foundation  of  the  latter — Sir  William  Berkeley's 
opinion — Distinguished  graduates  of  the  college 
— Influence  of  Williamsburg — A  miniature  court — 
Indian  education — The  Washingtons  go  to  Williams- 
burg — The  Burgesses — "Sons  of  Liberty" — Patrick 
Henry,  his  early  life — Contrast  between  Washington, 
Jefferson,  and  Henry — The  Williamsburg  spirit — 
"The  Heart  of  Rebellion" — At  Richmond — Fire  at 
Williamsburg — The  "Knights  of  the  Golden  Horse 
Shoe" — John  Esten  Cooke's account  of  Williamsburg 
— Bishop  Meade  on  Williamsburg — Old  Bruton 
Church — The  "Phi  Beta  Kappa"  Society  and  the 
students — LordDunmore's  message  to  the  Burgesses. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

THE  NEW  FORCES  ..,  .  .  .  .  191 
Washington's  letters  on  the  Stamp  Act — The  repeal 
of  the  Act — An  engrossing  topic — John  Adams'  opin- 
ion— Unrest  in  America — Colonisation  of  the 
country  different  in  different  places — Virginia  and 
Massachusetts — Patrick  Henry — The  Age  of  Doubt 
— The  Faust-poem  symbolises  the  situation — 
Change  in  the  air — Impatience  of  the  colonies — 
Spirit  of  the  wilderness — Physical  and  intellectual 
restlessness — Beginnings  of  literature — Pamphlets 
— The  year  1763 — The  Treaty  of  Paris — English 
and  French  in  America — Consequences  of  the  treaty 
— Expenses  of  government — Walpole  on  France — 


xii  Contents 

Growth  of  British  rule  in  America — The  Indians — 
The  policy  of  France — Difficulties  of  the  colonial 
system — Revenue  Acts,  etc. — The  Navigation  Act — 
The  billeting  of  soldiers  on  the  colonists — Character- 
istics of  the  American  commonwealths — Growth  of 
freedom — Grenville's  policy  of  exclusive  trade  with 
England — The  "Sea  Guard" — George  III  sanctions 
the  policy — The  British  navy  becomes  a  police  force 
to  prevent  contraband  trade — Stamps  introduced — 
Rights  of  American  legislative  bodies — February, 
1765,  the  Stamp  Act  passes,  providing  revenue  in 
America — Lord  Bute  and  Charles  Townshend  de- 
vise measures  to  raise  revenue — Taxation  without 
representation — Standing  army  for  America — Vari- 
ous measures  suggested  by  Stamp  Act  at  last 
resolved  upon — Grenville's  part  in  it. 

CHAPTER  XII. 

"THE  COCKATRICE'S  EGG"  .  .  .  „•  214 
Horace  Walpole  on  the  Stamp  Act — Patrick 
Henry's  Virginia  Resolutions — The  "Treason"  anec- 
dote— The  "Day-Star  of  the  Revolution  "—The 
"Member  from  Louisa" — The  "Parsons'  Case"  re- 
called— The  vote — Henry's  own  account  of  the 
origin  of  the  "Resolves" — Madison's  doubts — 
Washington's  letters  on  the  situation — To  George 
Mason — "Boycotting"  English  goods — Mason's  an- 
swer: pleads  for  reciprocity — Washington's  letter 
to  a  London  business  house — To  Bryan  Fairfax — 
The  tea-tax — Affairs  at  Boston  under  Gage — Op- 
pression of  Parliament — "The  crisis  has  arrived" 
— Arrival  of  the  tea-ships. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
"THE  DEADLY  TEA  CHEST"  .          .          .240 

Watchwords    of    Revolution — Tea    the    symbol 

Tea-drinking  in  the  iSth  century — Fiske  on  tea — 


Contents  xiii 

Ensuing  discontent — New  England  at  this  time:  its 
character — Massachusetts  and  its  peculiarities — 
Love  of  politics  and  idealism — John  Harvard  and 
his  college — Contrast  between  Harvard  and  William 
and  Mary  College — A  group  of  celebrated  men — 
Effect  of  the  Virginia  Resolutions — Troops  arrive 
— The  Boston  "Massacre" — Committees  of  Cor- 
respondence, circular  letters,  etc. — The  Tea-party  of 
December,  1774 — Sam  Adams:  his  influence — New 
England  character  at  this  time. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
THE  STRUGGLE  BEGINS          .         .       r  :.'J  256 

The  cup  runs  over — Grievances  of  a  decade — ' '  Eng- 
land has  long  arms" — Views  of  Fox,  Burke,  and 
Chatham — Jefferson's  opinion  of  the  causes  of  the 
war — The  Boston  Port  Bill — Excitement  spreads 
— The  Fairfax  County  "Resolves" — Gaiety  at  Wil- 
liamsburg — Day  of  fasting — Lord  Dunmore  dis- 
misses Burgesses — Delegates  appointed  to  a  Congress 
at  Philadelphia — The  Virginia  delegates,  Washington 
among  them — Grievances  rehearsed — John  Adams' 
opinion — Congress  assembles,  continues  seven  weeks 
in  session — Adjourns  to  meet  next  year — Its  charac- 
ter— Preparations  for  war — Convention  at  Rich- 
mond in  1775 — Henry's  words,  "Give  me  liberty  or 
give  me  death!" — The  clash  at  Lexington,  April 
1 9th — Paul  Revere — "Rape  of  the  Gunpowder"  at 
Williamsburg — Congress  convenes  a  second  time  at 
?;  Philadelphia,  May  loth — Washington  elected  com- 
mander-in-chief  of  American  forces — His  letter  to 
Mrs.  Washington — Colonial  troops  assemble  near 
Boston — The  words  of  Chatham — Inaction  of  the 
British — Character  of  colonial  troops — Anecdote 
of  American  marksman — Battle  of  Bunker  Hill, 
June  17,  1775 — Lack  of  discipline — Losses  in  the 
battle — Siege  of  Boston — Washington's  headquar- 
ters at  "Craigie  House" — Declines  salary — Con- 


xiv  Contents 

sends  arms  and  officers — La  Fayette,  De  Kalb,  Kos- 
ciusko  arrive — Pulaski,  Steuben,  De  Grasse,  D'Es- 
taing,  Rochambeau — Events  of  1777 — Disaster  to 
Burgoyne — His  Indian  allies — Burgoyne's  character 
— The  Adirondacks  in  summer — At  Saratoga — Gates 
and  Schuyler — Battle  of  Bennington — Surrender  of 
Burgoyne,  Oct.  17,  1777 — Arnold  and  Schuyler — 
The  former's  character — Baroness  Reidesel's  account 
— Schuyler's  magnanimity — At  the  South,  end  of 
1777 — Sir  William  Howe  leaves  New  York  secretly 
and  lands  18,000  troops  near  the  Elk  River 
and  captures  Philadelphia — Brandywine — Franklin's 
opinion — British  forces  divided — La  Fayette's  de- 
scription of  the  patriot  army — Effects  of  the  capture 
of  Burgoyne  and  of  Philadelphia — France  acknow- 
ledges the  independence  of  the  United  States. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

ON  TO  YORKTOWN          .  .  .  .  .312 

Valley  Forge:  1778 — Despair  of  the  Americans — 
Steuben  and  La  Fayette:  their  accounts — The  Tories 
— News  of  the  French  treaty — Charles  Lee — A 
foreigner's  description  of  Washington — The  "Spur- 
ious Letters" — Intrigues  of  the  Conway  Cabal — 
Sir  Henry  Clinton  evacuates  Philadelphia  in  June, 
1778 — Defeat  of  the  English  at  Monmouth — The 
traitor  Lee — La  Fayette's  account — A  gleam  of  light 
— Philadelphia  again  the  capital — Thacher  describes 
the  General — Condition  of  the  currency — Washing- 
ton's letters  to  Harrison  and  Nelson — Winter- 
quarters  in  1779  at  Middlebrook  and  Elizabethton 
— Letter  of  Franklin's  daughter — Defence  of  the 
Hudson — The  French  fleet — Conduct  of  the  Tories 
and  Hessians  and  Indians — The  French  minister 
Luzerne :  his  opinion  of  Washington — Rochambeau's 
fleet  comes — British  Southern  campaign — Charles- 
ton falls — The  two  Indies:  contrast — Weakness  of 
Congress — Washington  thereon — The  treason  of 


Contents  *v 

temporary  accounts  of  Washington — His  dispatches 
to  Congress — Lack  of  money  and  ammunition — 
Washington,  Franklin,  and  Jefferson  originally 
opposed  to  separation — Army  divided  into  three 
corps — Wilkes'  petition — Arnold,  Allen,  Schuyler, 
and  Montgomery  in  Canada — Death  of  Montgomery 
at  Quebec — First  flag  of  the  Union  unfurled,  Jan- 
uary i,  1776:  description — March  20,  1776,  Ameri- 
cans enter  Boston — Lord  North's  "Manifesto" — 
Hessians  hired — Congress  thanks  Washington — 
He  occupies  New  York — Its  importance — Arrival 
of  Lord  Howe's  fleet — The  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, July  4,  1776 — Thomas  Jefferson  writes 
it — Its  opening  paragraphs. 

CHAPTER  XV. 
THE  HEART  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  .          .       283 

Declaration  of  Independence  read  to  troops — The 
loyalists :  their  sufferings — Washington's  characteris- 
tics as  a  commander — The  "Fabian  Policy" — Opin- 
ions of  Fiske,  Green,  and  Thackeray — Character  of 
George  III:  Green's  opinion — Miss  Burney's  Diary — 
Second  year  of  the  Revolution — Southern  campaign 
— British  at  New  York — Weakness  of  the  British 
commanders:  their  blunders — Autumn  of  1776 — 
Tactics  of  Americans — Battle  of  Brooklyn 
Heights — Washington  evacuates  New  York — 
Fall  of  Fort  Washington — Desertions  and 
illness — Capture  of  General  Charles  Lee — Corn- 
wallis  thinks  the  war  over — The  Jersey  campaign — 
Battles  of  Princeton  and  Trenton — Crossing  of  the 
Delaware — Howe  offers  terms  of  peace — The  year 
1777:  Chatham  speaks  against  employing  Indians — 
Washington  favours  standing  army — Made  dictator 
for  six  months — Plots  against  him — Never  smiles — 
Congress  flees  from  Philadelphia  to  Baltimore — Suf- 
ferings of  the  soldiers — Winter-quarters  at  Morris- 
town — Inertia  of  Howe  and  Cornwallis — France 


xvi  Contents 

Arnold:  his  career — Reprimanded — Major  Andre 
and  Arnold:  their  plot — Washington's  position:  his 
account — Capture  of  Andre  and  flight  of  Arnold 
— Andr<§  hanged — Chastellux  on  Washington — 
Thacher  describes  Andre's  execution — Affairs  at  the 
South — Lincoln  captured — Gates  put  in  command 
at  the  South — Tories  in  the  Carolinas — Impolicy 
of  the  English — Lodge's  account — Errors  of  Gates — 
Defeat  of  Americans  at  Camden — Sumter,  Corn- 
wallis,  Tarleton — Cornwallis  trapped:  compared 
with  Burgoyne — Character  of  the  Revolutionary 
"Rough  Riders" — General  Greene — Battle  of 
Cowpens — Guilford  Court  House — Barbarities  of 
Tarleton  —  Moultrie — Cornwallis  retreats — Marion 
and  Sumter — Help  of  France — Robert  Morris's  finan- 
cial policy — French  fleet  at  Newport  blockaded 
— De  Grasse  sails  for  the  Chesapeake — Allied  ar- 
mies move  from  New  York — Condition  of  Virginia — 
Tarleton's  raid  on  Charlottesville — Cornwallis 
reaches  Yorktown  in  August — Washington  conies 
to  take  command  with  16,000  troops — Dissensions 
among  commanders — Cornwallis  invested — October 
i gth  he  surrenders — The  closing  scene. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
THE  EBBING  TIDE         .....      -345 

Horace  Walpole  again — His  comments  on  the  sur- 
render of  Cornwallis — Tom  Paine  on  the  crisis — 
Seven  years  of  war — Beaumarchais  and  Franklin 
— Vergennes,  the  French  premier — Franklin's  repu- 
tation abroad — John  Adams  and  John  Jay,  his  asso- 
ciates— Their  mission — Death  of  John  Parke  Custis 
— Washington  visits  his  mother — Ball  at  Fredericks- 
burg — Goes  to  Mount  Vernon  and  Philadelphia 
— British  retreat  to  Charleston — Its  evacuation — 
The  year  1782 — Peace  desired — Sir  Guy  Carleton 
sounds  the  colonies  on  a  settlement — Proposition 
to  make  Washington  King — Washington's  indigna- 


Contents  xvii 

tion — Rodney  defeats  De  Grasse — Privateering  on 
the  seas — John  Paul  Jones'  achievements — Founds 
the  navy — Fears  of  Washington — De  Broglie's  de- 
scription of  the  Americans — Rochambeau's  praise — 
Washington  at  forty-nine — Serious  situation  at 
the  American  camp — Armstrong's  address — Gates 
treachery — Threatened  mutiny. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

A  "MERRIE  CHRISTMAS"        .          .          .          .       366 

Nov.  30,  1782,  Preliminaries  of  peace  signed  at 
Paris — American  and  British  commissioners — Mu- 
tinies— General  Gates  concerned  in  them — Washing- 
ton to  Greene  on  the  end  of  the  Southern  campaign ; 
to  Congress ;  to  Hamilton — Prays  for  union — Writes 
to  La  Fayette  on  States'  rights — Dread  of  disunion 
— Carleton  notifies  Washington  of  the  ratification  of 
peace — Letters  of  the  two  commanders  thereon — 
First  salute  of  17  guns  fired — A  retrospect  of  175 
years — The  famous  "Circular  Letter"  of  Washing- 
ton: the  four  fundamentals  of  American  independ- 
ence— Christian  tone  of  the  document — Trevelyan's 
account  of  Washington's  churchmanship — His 
habit  of  prayer  and  worship—Incident  at  Morris- 
town  of  Washington  communing — Announces  him- 
self a  member  of  the  Church  of  England — Five  great 
English  statesmen — Society  of  the  Cincinnati 
founded — General  Knox  the  founder — Washington 
its  president — Opposition  to  it — Nov.  2 ,  Washington 
bids  farewell  to  his  troops — Treaty  of  Paris  between 
England  and  America  signed  at  Paris  Sept.  3,  1783 — 
Its  ten  articles — Franklin's  influence — Adams  and 
Jay  co-operate — Lecky  on  Franklin — Washington 
surrenders  his  sword  to  Congress  at  Annapolis — 
Mount  Vernon  memories — Thackeray's  contrast  be- 
tween the  two  Georges — The  General's  farewell 
words — The  last  solemn  act — Off  for  Mount  Vernon. 


xviii  Contents 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

BIRTH  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION  .       388 

Peace  only  apparent — Golden  Age  expected — A 
Spanish  view — The  great  West — The  Indian  wars — 
George  Rogers  Clark  and  his  conquest  of  the  North- 
west Territory — Lodge's  description — Patrick  Henry 
apprises  the  Virginia  Legislature  of  Clark's  achieve- 
ment— Perils  of  the  time — Washington  to  La  Fay- 
ette;  to  General  Knox — A  foreigner's  impression — 
Made  a  Mason — Improvements  at  Mount  Vernon — 
His  life  there — A  Briton's  account — Solicitude  for  his 
guests — Danger  of  civil  war  after  Yorktown — 
A  critical  period — Me  Master's  view — Assertion  of 
States'  rights — 111  treatment  of  Tories — Repudiation 
of  debts — Shays'  Rebellion  crushed  by  General 
Lincoln — A  demoralised  currency — The  coins  of 
1784 — The  inland  navigation  scheme  suggests  the 
new  Federal  Union — A  commercial  convention 
with  Maryland  succeeded  by  a  general  convention 
at  Philadelphia  in  1 787 — La  Fayette's  anxiety — Mar- 
shall's description  of  the  origin  of  the  Philadelphia 
Convention — Washington  a  delegate — May  2,  1787, 
the  date  of  the  Philadelphia  Convention — Madison's 
letter — Federalism  of  Washington — Elected  presi- 
dent of  the  Convention,  which  continues  in  session 
four  and  a  half  months — Madison's  journal — Injunc- 
tion to  secrecy — Clause  in  Madison's  will  as  to  his 
diary — "The  Federal  Pyramid" — Franklin's  witty 
paper — Only  three  fail  to  sign  the  Constitution — 
The  States  gradually  ratify  the  Constitution 
The  Virginia  Convention  of  1 788 :  how  divided  on  the 
Constitution — Washington's  Diary  on  the  Conven- 
tion's work;  compromise  its  key-note. 

CHAPTER  XX. 

FIRST  CITIZEN  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES      .          .     422 
Washington  choice  of  the  people  as  President — His 
reluctance — Death    of    Mary    Washington — Custis 


Contents  xix 

describes  it — John  Adams  Vice-President — Diary 
of  Washington — Congress  assembles  at  New  York — 
April  30,  1789:  the  first  inauguration — The  Cabinet 
— Rules  of  etiquette,  hours,  dress,  etc. — The  soldier 
becomes  the  statesman — Two  great  measures:  neu- 
trality in  foreign  troubles  and  moral  alliance  with 
Great  Britain — The  first  Thanksgiving  Day  and  the 
first  census — Ceremony  at  visits — Philadelphia  be- 
comes seat  of  government  till  1800 — Washington 
City  planned  and  laid  out  by  Washington,  Major 
L' Enfant,  and  others — His  illness — Makes  tours  in 
New  England  and  the  South — John  Hancock  visits 
him — Presents  from  Europe:  portraits,  statues, 
busts,  etc. — Congress  and  the  Supreme  Court — Fiscal 
policy  of  the  United  States — The  Whiskey  Rebellion 
in  Pennsylvania,  1794 — The  Golden  Age  of  the 
Republic — Erskine's  Eulogy — Indian  policy — St. 
Clair's  disaster  in  the  West — Close  of  the  first  ad- 
ministration— Washington  re-elected — Letters  of 
Hamilton,  Jefferson,  and  Randolph  urging  him  to 
accept — Faith  in  Providence — John  Adams  again 
elected  Vice-President — The  second  administra- 
tion— The  French  Revolution — Tension  between 
France  and  England — War  declared — Neutrality  of 
the  United  States  proclaimed — Excitement — Britain 
refuses  to  surrender  the  frontier  fortresses — Jay 
negotiates  a  treaty  with  England,  in  1 795-6 — Genet's 
meddling  course — Fluctuations  in  Cabinet — Army 
and  Navy — Treaty  with  Spain — Severe  criticism 
of  the  President — His  bitter  resentment — The 
"Spurious  Washington  Letters"  again — Retires  in 
1797 — Results  of  his  second  administration — His 
Farewell  Address — Wilson's  opinion  of  it — Adams 
succeeds  him — Washington  appointed  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  army  against  France. 


XX 


Contents 


CHAPTER  XXL 

"THE  GLIMMERING  TAPER"        ,,       .          .          .   449 

"Farmer  Washington" — His  occupations  at  Mount 
Vernon — The  "Parting  Guest" — Last  days — Insults 
of  France — The  expiring  century — Illness  and  death. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


GEORGE  WASHINGTON  .         .        Frontispiece 

From  the  portrait  by  Gilbert  Stuart. 

THOMAS    JEFFERSON  ....  14 

From  the  painting  by  Gilbert  Stuart. 

THE    FIRST    CABINET        .....  32 

From  an  old  print. 

MOUNT    VERNON     .  ,...,.,.  .  .  .  50 

From  a  photograph. 

WASHINGTON'S  AUTOGRAPHS         ....         68 

BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  IN  1779       ....         84 
From  an  oil-painting  in  the  possession  of  the  His- 
torical Society  of  Pennsylvania. 

GENERAL   ISRAEL   PUTNAM  ....          IO2 

From  the  painting  by   H.  I.  Thompson,    in   the 
State  House,  Hartford,  Conn. 

BATTLE    OF    PRINCETON DEATH   OF    MERCER  .          114 

From  the  painting  by  Col.  John  Trumbull. 

INTERVIEW    OF    HOWE'S    MESSENGER     WITH     WASH- 
INGTON .....       f-'-»r.       .          130 
After  the  painting  by  M.  A.  Wageman. 


xxii  Illustrations 

PAGE 

WASHINGTON   MEDAL  (1776)  .  .  .  .          140 

MARTHA    WASHINGTON  .....          l6o 

From  the  portrait  by  Gilbert  Stuart. 

WASHINGTON    CROSSING    THE   DELAWARE          .  .          172 

After  the  painting  by  E.  Leutze. 

GEORGE    WASHINGTON    ......          182 

From  the  painting  by  Rembrandt  Peale.  Repro- 
duced by  permission  of  C.  Klackner,  N.  Y. 
Copyright,  1894. 

WASHINGTON'S  COAT-OF-ARMS      ....       196 

WASHINGTON  AT  MONMOUTH       ....       208 
From  a  design  by  F.  O.  C.  Darley. 

SURVEYOR'S  MANUSCRIPT      .....       218 

WASHINGTON  ENTERING  NEW  YORK  CITY     .         .       226 
From  the  engraving  by  A.   H.  Ritchie  after  the 
original  painting  by  F.  O.  C.  Darley. 

WASHINGTON    ARCH,    NEW    YORK   CITY  .  .  .          240 

JOHN    ADAMS  .......          248 

From  a  steel  engraving. 

CARPENTERS'  HALL,  PHILADELPHIA       .         .         .       264 
Wherein  met  the  first  Continental  Congress,  1774. 

MAJOR-GENERAL   CHARLES    LEE         ....          276 
From  an  English  engraving  published  in  1776. 

MAJOR-GENERAL    NATHANAEL    GREENE  .  .          280 

From  the  painting  by  Col.  John  Trumbull. 

WASHINGTON'S  HEADQUARTERS    AT    NEWBURGH- 

ON-THE-HUDSON     ......       284 

THE  BRANDYWINE  AT  CHADD's  FORD  .         .       306 


Illustrations  xxiii 


PAGE 


THE    SURRENDER    OF    YORKTOWN  .  .  .         316 

From  an  old  print. 

WASHINGTON    AT    TRENTON,    JANUARY    2D,    1777    .         328 
From  the  engraving  by  Daggett  after  the  original 
painting  by  Colonel  Trumbull. 

THE    MARQUIS  DE  LAFAYETTE  ....          336 

From  a  French  print,  1781. 

JOHN   JAY        .  .  .  .  .  .  .         35° 

From  a  steel  engraving. 

MAJOR-GENERAL    BENJAMIN    LINCOLN      .  .  .          354 

From  a  steel  engraving. 

MAJOR-GENERAL    HENRY    KNOX         ....          396 
From   the   painting  by   Gilbert    Stuart,    in    the 
Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston. 

FRAUNCES'    TAVERN  ......          4OO 

From  an  old  print. 

WASHINGTON    MONUMENT          .....          428 
Looking  across  the  ' '  Flats." 


GEORGE  WASHINGTON 


CHAPTER  I 

AT  THE   FIRESIDE 

HEINE'S  fanciful  story  of  the  wondrous  cactus 
that  slumbered  a  hundred  years,  and  then 
sent  up  a  strange  and  dazzling  flower  came  lit- 
erally true  in  the  thorny  evolution  of  American 
history.  The  flowering  of  Washington  out  of  the 
cactus-like  environment  of  American  life  in  the 
eighteenth  century  is  one  of  those  psychological 
problems  not  wholly  explicable  on  the  ground  of 
environment  alone.  Heredity,  of  course,  had  a 
crowning  part  in  it.  The  strenuous  character  of  the 
race  has  evolved  in  hundreds  of  years  of  struggle 
with  men  and  things.  When  the  brothers,  John  and 
Lawrence  Washington,  first  emigrated  to  Virginia 
in  Cromwell's  day,  the  character  of  the  strain  had 
already  been  stamped  with  ineffaceable  marks.  The 
Transatlantic  Virginian  was  the  Transatlantic  Eng- 
lishman transformed  into  something  more  enduring, 
more  tenacious,  more  granite-like  in  its  hardness  by 
incessant  battling  with  aboriginal  conditions;  with 
the  Redskin,  with  the  wild  wilderness,  with  the 
merchant  adventurers,  the  London  Companies,  the 


2  George  Washington 

wrangling  burgesses,  with  governors  like  Sir  Wil- 
liam Berkeley  and  soldiers  like  those  prominent  in 
Bacon's  Rebellion.  The  incessant  friction  of  colonial 
life  in  its  semi-civilized  stages  sharpened  the  blunter 
specimens  of  English  urban  and  civic  life  to  a 
keenness  and  a  fighting  edge  which,  transmitted 
from  father  to  son,  became  fixed  in  a  type,  and  ex- 
panded into  a  character  that  was  strangely  com- 
posite, that  drew  into  itself  many  elements,  and 
became  at  last  a  moral  and  intellectual  fabric  of 
enduring  strength  and  originality.  What  differen- 
tiated the  Greek  from  all  others  was  probably  the 
SEA  that  shone  and  shimmered  into  his  life  at  every 
angle,  and  fed  the  life  of  his  soul  with  its  subtle 
influences.  What  differentiated  the  Transatlantic 
Englishman  from  his  island  brother  was  the  FOR- 
EST with  its  vast  stretches  of  mysterious,  unex- 
plored territory  filled  witl.  a  subtle  foe  whose 
activity  was  perpetual. 

The  Redskin  thus  became  a  prime  factor  in  early 
American  education.  The  differentiations  went  on 
from  the  time  "  the  Kingdom  of  Virginia  "  sprang 
out  of  the  soft  Western  seas,  and  the  land  of  the 
Powhatans  and  the  Lady  Pocahontas  tickled  the  im- 
agination of  the  poetic  Elizabethans.  A  grave,  seri- 
ous, solemn,  efficacious  type  was  evolved,  which 
waited  a  hundred,  or  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  be- 
fore its  eyes  twinkled  in  the  sunny  faces  of  William 
Byrd  or  Benjamin  Franklin.  The  first  two  hundred 
years  were  a  determined  struggle  for  existence, 
along  a  coast-line  1800  miles  and  more  in  length, 
as  it  stretched  in  sinuous  course  from  Boston  to 


At  the   Fireside  3 

St.  Augustine  and  New  Orleans,  the  edges  of  a 
mighty  volume  whose  inner  pages  were  writ  large 
in  labyrinthine  wilderness,  unexplored  mountain, 
river,  and  savannah,  and  the  endless  vicissitudes 
of  frontier  life.  Life  on  a  gigantic  scale  opened 
before  the  dazzled  eyes  of  John  Smith,  La  Salle, 
Hernando  de  Soto,  Marquette,  and  the  Jesuit 
Fathers,  and,  unawed  by  its  immensity,  the  joyous, 
tireless  explorers  pushed  on  up  river  and  down  lake, 
over  mountain  and  through  primeval  forest,  until 
their  eyes  fairly  blazed  with  enthusiasm  as  their 
tongues  told,  in  Purchas  and  Hakluyt  and  in  the 
Jesuit  journals,  of  the  wonders  of  this  Western 
"  Orient  "  which  many  of  them  still  supposed  to  be 
the  golden  Cathay  or  shadowy  Cipango  of  Columbus 
and  the  poets. 

It  has  required  four  hundred  years  and  more  to 
send  a  thin  wave  of  population  over  this  colossal 
region,  and  it  will  require  four  hundred  more  to  peo- 
ple it  as  densely  as  the  European  homes  from  which 
the  early  navigators  and  immigrants  sprang. 

The  triumphant  conquest  of  the  edges  of  these 
unimaginable  lands  occupied  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years,  in  the  course  of  which,  a  new  and  noble  type 
of  immigrant  manhood  and  womanhood  saw  the 
light.  The  petulant  spirit  of  the  five  millions  of 
Elizabethans,  "  cribb'd,  cabin'd  and  confined  "  with- 
in the  narrow  limits  of  the  British  Isles,  burst  forth 
with  overwhelming  gaiety,  as  if  in  a  huge  carnival 
celebration,  and,  despite  hunger,  starvation,  death 
in  a  thousand  cruel  forms,  martyrdom  in  strange 


4  George  Washington 

unheard-of  ways,  torture  and  torment,  continued 
to  pour  forth  in  numberless  streams  until  the  coast- 
line of  the  New  World  grew  into  a  wonderfully 
picturesque  and  powerful  duplicate  of  the  European, 
like,  yet  marvellously  unlike,  in  its  varying  features 
and  phenomena.  The  eyes  that  look  out  from  the 
old  portraits  belonging  to  this  time  have  a  singular 
depth  and  intensity,  as  if  their  owners  beheld  visions 
never  before  imagined  by  the  commonplace  dames 
and  cavaliers  across  the  water.  Religion  acquires 
an  incandescent  glow  unknown  in  the  older  coun- 
tries, and  enshrines  itself  in  temples  and  tabernacles 
erected  on  the  borders  of  the  wilderness,  in  the  tim- 
bered town,  among  the  plantation  oaks,  or  appears 
passionately  supplicating  mercy  in  the  quaint  intro- 
ductory clauses  of  old  yellow  wills  and  ancient  vestry 
books. 

It  was  in  the  beautiful  and  romantic  Virginia  of 
this  time,  the  Virginia  of  Indian  unrest  and  semi- 
civilisation,  that  George  Washington  was  born  at 
the  old  homestead  of  Wakefield,  in  Westmoreland 
County,  February  the  Twenty-Second  (New  Style), 
1732,  about  ten  in  the  morning. 

Wakefield  was  one  of  the  homes  of  the  Washing- 
ton family  at  that  time,  in  Eastern  Virginia,  and 
there  this  little  household  (increasing  year  by  year) 
lived  until  the  house  burned  down,  from  the  care- 
lessness, it  seems,  of  good  Madam  Washington  who 
took  it  into  her  head  to  burn  brush  and  stubble  raked 
together  in  the  garden,  and,  incidentally,  burnt  her 
home  to  the  ground.  The  servants  fought  the  fire 


At  the   Fireside  5 

heroically,  but  in  vain,  saving  only  a  few  articles 
of  furniture  and  the  ancient  copy  of  Matthew  Hale's 
Contemplations,  Moral  and  Divine,  now  said  to  be 
at  Mount  Vernon. 

This  volume  had  belonged  to  Augustine  Wash- 
ington's first  wife,  Jane  Butler,  and  descended  to 
the  second,  in  the  easy  and  natural  way  of  second 
marriages  so  prevalent  in  early  Virginia. 

What  manner  of  house  it  was,  where  this  Vir- 
ginia family  passed  their  earlier  life,  may  be  con- 
jectured from  the  imaginative  reconstruction  of  its 
details,  found  in  the  pages  of  the  charming  his- 
torian, Marion  Harland: 

"  The  blunted  point  of  the  triangle,  formed  by  the 
creeks  that  furnished  fat  low-grounds  on  two  sides  of 
Augustine  Washington's  plantation  of  Wakefield, 
rested  upon  the  Potomac,  and  was  a  mile  in  width. 
Wakefield  comprised  a  thousand  acres  of  as  fine  wood 
and  bottom  lands  as  were  to  be  found  in  a  county  '  that, 
by  reason  of  the  worth,  talents,  and  patriotism  that 
adorned  it,  was  called  the  Athens  of  Virginia/  The 
house  faced  the  Potomac,  the  lawn,  sloping  to  the  bank 
between  three  and  four  hundred  yards  distant  from 
the  '  porch,'  running  from  corner  to  corner  of  the 
dwelling.  There  were  four  rooms  of  fair  size  upon 
the  first  floor,  the  largest,  in  a  one-story  extension  at 
the  back,  being  '  the  chamber.'  The  hip-roof  above  the 
main  building  was  pierced  by  dormer-windows  that 
lighted  a  large  attic.  At  each  end  of  the  house  was  a 
chimney,  built  upon  the  outside  of  the  frame  dwelling, 
and  of  dimensions  that  made  the  latter  seem  dispropor- 
tionately small.  Each  cavernous  fireplace  would  hold 


6  George  Washington 

a  half  cord  of  wood,  and  the  leaping  blaze  had  all 
seasons  for  its  own  in  a  region  where  river  fogs  at 
evening  and  morning  were  vehicles  of  the  dreaded 
'  ague  and  fever.'  About  the  fireplace  in  the  parlour, 
were  the  blue  Dutch  tiles  much  affected  in  the  decora- 
tive architecture  of  the  time.  What  a  priceless  scrap  of 
bric-a-brac  to  a  modern  collector,  would  be  one  of 
those  same  enamelled  squares,  bedight  with  a  repre- 
sentation of  '  Abraham's  Offering,'  or  '  Moses  Break- 
ing the  Tables  of  the  Law,'  the  tents  of  Israel,  like  a 
row  of  sharp  haystacks,  almost  touching  his  knees, 
although  ostensibly  dwarfed  in  perspective  until  the 
whole  camp  was  smaller  than  the  tablets  he  hurled  to 
earth ! — the  tiles  that  once  reflected  rosily  the  thought- 
ful face  of  the  young  wife,  and  gave  distorted  images 
of  the  blonde  giant,  her  nominal  lord  and  master, 
that,  by  and  by,  missed  the  musing  face  and  slighter 
figure  for  a  time,  and  then  showed  a  double  picture, — 
a  visage  paler  and  sweeter  than  of  old,  bent  over  the 
baby  that  was,  from  the  beginning,  the  image  of  his 
mother.  In  the  one-storied  chamber  the  Moses  of  the 
New  World  was  born,  and  the  mother  nursed  the 
goodly  child  upon  her  bosom,  in  gladness  and  pride  of 
heart,  until  the  birth  of  the  little  Betty,  in  June,  1733. 
Between  the  stepmother  and  the  two  sturdy  sons  of 
Mr.  Washington's  first  marriage,  there  existed  cordial 
friendliness  from  the  hour  of  her  installation  as  mis- 
tress of  the  modest  mansion.  An  elderly  kinswoman 
had  cared  for  them  during  their  father's  protracted 
absence,  but,  with  the  recollection  of  their  own  mother, 
hardly  two  years  dead,  in  their  memories,  it  spoke  well 
for  the  little  fellows,  as  for  the  new  mother,  that  they 
yielded  her  respectful  duty.  Her  early  life  had  made 


At  the   Fireside  7 

every  detail  of  country  housekeeping  familiar  to  her. 
The  retinue  of  servants  was  perhaps  larger  than  that 
at  Epping  Forest  had  been,  and  the  appointments  of 
the  house  may  have  included  relics  of  such  grand  liv- 
ing as  had  befitted  Cave  Castle,  and  went  well  with 
the  stories,  told  over  the  logs  on  winter  nights,  of 
court-visits  and  royal  preferments.  Apostles  of  De- 
mocracy, though  the  Washingtons  called  themselves, 
they  were  ingrain  aristocrats — the  greatest  of  them 
not  excepted."  x 

The  deepest  glance  into  these  earliest  years  of 
Madam  Washington's  wife-  and  widowhood,  and 
the  boyhood  and  youth  of  George,  has  been  cast  by 
George  Washington  Parke  Custis,  adopted  grand- 
son of  the  chieftain,  to  whose  Recollections  and  Pri- 
vate Memoirs  of  Washington  all  later  historians, 
from  Irving  and  Lossing  down,  are  indebted  for 
their  intimate  details.  Custis  saw  and  remembered 
the  great  dame  but  dimly,  personally,  being 
a  boy  only  four  years  old  when  she  died;  but  he 
lived  at  Mount  Vernon  until  he  was  nineteen,  and 
gathered  what  he  records  from  the  lips  of  the  Wash- 
ingtons and  Lewises  themselves. 

The  illustrious  lady  was  just  such  a  woman  as 
one  might  have  imagined  to  have  been  most  perfectly 
suited  to  be  the  mother  of  an  unannounced  hero — 
plain,  dignified,  sincere,  strong  in  the  possession  of 
the  homely  and  home-like  virtues,  absolutely  devoid 
of  vanity  or  ostentation,  without  frivolity  or  femi- 
nine captiousness,  reticent  to  a  degree,  and  so  free 

1  The  Story  of  Mary  Washington,  by  Marion  Harland. 


8  George  Washington 

from  self-consciousness  that  she  did  not  hesitate, 
without  any  sense  of  false  shame  or  humiliation,  to 
receive  Lafayette  and  his  distinguished  company, 
rake  in  hand,  arrayed  in  the  unpretentious  homespun 
and  sun-bonnet  of  the  time.  Her  calm  placidity  of 
temperament  was  as  if  carved  out  of  marble,  or 
moulded  into  the  antique  lineaments  of  Judith  or 
Miriam.  No  exultant  cry  ever  broke  from  her  lips, 
no  matter  how  dazzling  might  have  been  the  distinc- 
tions heaped,  in  flattering  phrase,  on  his  head,  from 
the  time  when,  by  a  kind  of  irrepressible  buoyancy, 
the  young  son  began  to  rise  and  to  win  one  colonial 
dignity  after  another,  as  major,  lieutenant-colonel, 
colonel,  burgess,  commander-in-chief,  president :  all 
seemed,  to  this  undemonstrative  woman,  a  matter 
of  course,  just  as  it  should  be.  Though  endowed 
with  this  apparent  equability  of  temperament,  Mary 
Washington's  nature  glowed  with  a  suppressed  fer- 
vour which  transmitted  itself  to  her  son,  and  in  him 
became  power  of  endurance,  passion  for  command, 
ambition  to  do  and  to  dare  in  the  colonial  wars, 
spontaneous  assumption  of  leadership,  and  the  nat- 
ural and  easy  command  of  men.  Ardour,  thus  spir- 
itualised, coins  itself  into  the  noblest  ideals,  into  the 
tireless  feet  that  explore  the  sources  of  the  Nile,  into 
the  pen  that  writes  the  "  Cosmos,"  into  the  exqui- 
site harmonies  that  well  up  in  the  soul  of  Beethoven. 
Whether  it  take  a  martial  or  a  musical,  an  intel- 
lectual or  a  physical  turn,  the  fire  that  burns  inward, 
the  vestal  flame  on  the  altar  of  the  soul,  must  be 
there,  radiant,  if  still,  not  noisy  and  crackling. 


At  the  Fireside  9 

Everybody  who  came  near  either  Washington  or 
his  mother  felt  the  suppressed  glow  that  was  in  them. 
Intense  heat  sometimes  has  the  effect  of  cold.  Mil- 
ton's remarkable  epithet,  "  burns  frore,"  aptly  de- 
scribes the  burning  frost  of  Washington's  nature, 
the  fiery  chill  that  embarrassed  his  companions  even 
in  their  most  intimate  intercourse  with  him,  the 
latent  fire  that  sometimes,  though  rarely,  leapt  to 
his  lips  in  impassioned  phrases. 

This  notable  characteristic  came  from  Mary  Ball, 
and  shines  forth  in  many  of  the  anecdotes  related  by 
Custis  and  her  grandson,  Lawrence  Washington  of 
Chotank.  Says  the  latter : 

"  I  was  often  [at  the  Washington  home]  with 
George,  his  playmate,  schoolmate,  and  young  man's 
companion.  Of  the  mother  I  was  ten  times  more 
afraid  than  I  ever  was  of  my  own  parents.  She  awed 
me  in  the  midst  of  her  kindness,  for  she  was,  indeed, 
truly  kind.  I  have  often  been  present  with  her  sons, 
proper,  tall  fellows  too,  and  we  were  all  as  mute  as 
mice ;  and  even  now,  when  time  has  whitened  my  locks, 
and  I  am  the  grand-parent  of  a  second  generation,  I 
could  not  behold  that  remarkable  woman  without  feel- 
ings it  is  impossible  to  describe.  Whoever  has  seen 
that  awe-inspiring  air  and  manner  so  characteristic  in 
the  Father  of  his  Country,  will  remember  the  matron 
as  she  appeared,  when  the  presiding  genius  of  her  well- 
ordered  household,  commanding  and  being  obeyed." 

Custis,  in  the  odd  Johnsonian  English  of  the 
early  nineteenth  century,  thus  describes  her  personal 
features : 


io  George  Washing-ton 

"  In  her  person,  the  matron  was  of  middle  size, 
and  well-proportioned ;  her  features  pleasing,  yet 
strongly  marked.  It  is  not  the  happiness  of  the  author 
to  remember  her,  having  only  seen  her  with  infant 
eyes.  The  sister  of  the  Chief,  he  perfectly  well  remem- 
bers. She  was  a  most  majestic- looking  woman,  and 
so  strikingly  like  the  brother,  that  it  was  a  matter  of 
frolic  to  throw  a  cloak  around  her  and  placing  a  mili- 
tary hat  on  her  head,  such  was  her  amazing  resem- 
blance, that  on  her  appearance,  battalions  would  have 
presented  arms  and  senates  risen  to  do  homage  to  the 
Chief." 

The  death  of  Augustine  Washington,  in  1743, 
when  George  was  only  eleven  years  old,  broke  up 
the  happy  Wakefield  life  and  left  the  lady  a  widow 
at  the  early  age  of  thirty-five,  with  a  family  of  four 
sons  and  one  daughter,  besides  the  two  sons  of  her 
husband's  marriage  with  Jane  Butler.  Her  admi- 
rable relations  with  these  step-children  incidentally 
throw  a  pleasing  light  on  Mary  Washington's  home 
life,  and  the  affection  of  Lawrence  (one  of  these 
sons)  for  his  half-brother  George  illustrates  the 
cordial  feeling  among  its  various  members,  which 
was  a  distinguishing  mark  of  the  whole  kith  and 
clan  of  the  Washingtons. 

The  idyll  of  Wakefield  must  have  been  almost 
as  simple  and  unaffected,  as  devoid  of  incident  and 
as  undramatic,  as  that  of  the  famous  vicar  painted 
by  the  contemporary  Goldsmith.  An  earnest,  seri 
ous,  yet  delightsome  boyhood  seems  to  have  been 
that  of  Washington :  hunting,  riding,  shooting,  fish- 


At  the  Fireside  1 1 

ing,  all  healthy  open-air  exercises,  filled  its  busy 
hours  of  morning  and  afternoon ;  and  the  few  hours 
dedicated  to  intellectual  work  resulted  in  imparting 
to  the  boy,  first  at  his  mother's  knee,  then  at  the 
hands  of  Master  Hobby,  the  sexton,  and,  later,  at 
an  "  old-field  "  academy  in  or  near  Fredericksburg, 
the  rudiments  of  a  plain  English  education.  Essen- 
tially a  man  of  action,  Washington  never  wholly  rid 
himself  of  the  defects  and  limitations  of  an  early 
imperfect  education.  "  William  and  Mary "  and 
Princeton  were  then  flourishing  institutions,  not 
impossibly  distant  from  Fredericksburg,  yet  Wash- 
ington was  not  sent  to  these  institutions  as  Jefferson 
and  Madison  were,  only  a  decade  later.  Latin  and 
French,  the  not  unusual  polite  accomplishments  of 
the  day  in  the  colonies  north  of  Virginia,  were  prac- 
tically unknown  to  the  Virginia  schoolboy  whose 
business-like  turn  of  mind,  influenced  perhaps  by 
its  knowledge  of  the  family's  large  possessions  in 
land,  fixed  itself  almost  instinctively  on  mathe- 
matics, and,  among  the  various  branches  of  that 
science,  chose  surveying  as  the  most  remunerative. 

In  the  same  manner,  Thomas  Jefferson,  Rogers 
Clark,  and  John  Adams — not  to  mention  the  omnis- 
cient Franklin — directed  their  early  faculties,  anc" 
trained  them  by  the  surveyor's  instruments  of  pre- 
cision to  those  habits  of  exact  thought  which  so 
signally  distinguished  three,  at  least,  of  these  early 
typical  Americans,  and  helped  to  make  them  tower 
above  their  contemporaries  in  scientific  attainments. 

Intimacy  with  the  field  and  forest,  with  the  flow- 


12  George  Washington 

ing  expanse  of  river  and  estuary,  with  the  mighty 
stretches  of  virgin  wood  that  travelled  in  almost  lim- 
itless undulations  towards  the  Great  Lakes  and  the 
Mississippi,  thus  entered  naturally  and  indispen- 
sably into  the  lives  of  the  young  Americans,  and 
evoked  in  them  the  self-reliance,  fearlessness,  per- 
sonal hardihood,  and  undaunted  courage  character- 
istic of  the  men  of  that  day. 

If  there  is  one  feature  more  than  another  which 
astonishes  the  enervated  idler  of  our  days,  it  is  the 
enormous  personal  sacrifices  made  by  the  men  and 
women  of  the  American  eighteenth  century,  the  ex- 
haustless  stores  of  physical  strength  required  by  the 
itineraries  described  in  the  memoirs  of  the  period, 
the  patience  and  prowess  absolutely  demanded  by 
the  smallest  journey  into  the  wilderness,  and  the 
Spartan  toleration  of  hunger,  fatigue,  want,  and  dis- 
ease, entailed  by  birth  on  this  primitive  society. 

The  softer  courtesies  of  life  were,  however,  not 
wholly  neglected  in  the  young  Washington's  early 
education. 

"  Among  the  manuscript  books  of  George  Wash- 
ington, preserved  in  the  State  Archives  at  Washing- 
ton City,  the  earliest  bears  the  date,  written  in  it  by 
himself,  1745.  Washington  was  born  February  n, 
1731,  O.  S.,  so  that  when  writing  in  this  book  he  was 
either  near  the  close  of  his  fourteenth,  or  in  his  fif- 
teenth year.  It  is  entitled  Forms  of  Writing,  and 
has  thirty  folio  pages;  the  contents,  all  in  his  boyish 
handwriting,  are  sufficiently  curious.  Amid  copied 
forms  of  exchange,  bonds,  receipts,  sales,  and  similar 


At  the  Fireside  13 

exercises,  occasionally  in  ornate  penmanship,  there  are 
poetic  selections,  among  them  lines  of  a  religious  tone 
on  '  True  Happiness.'  But  the  great  interest  of  the 
book  centres  in  the  pages  headed :  '  Rules  of  Civility 
and  Decent  Behaviour  in  Company  and  Conversation.' 
The  book  had  been  gnawed  at  the  bottom  by  Mount 
Vernon  mice,  before  it  reached  the  State  Archives, 
and  nine  of  the  no  Rules  have  thus  suffered,  the 
sense  of  several  being  lost. 

"  The  Rules  possess  so  much  historic  interest  that 
it  seems  surprising  that  none  of  Washington's  bio- 
graphers or  editors  should  have  given  them  to  the 
world.  Washington  Irving,  in  his  Life  of  Washing- 
ton, excites  interest  in  them  by  a  tribute,  but  does  not 
quote  even  one.  Sparks  quotes  fifty-seven,  but  inex- 
actly, and  with  his  usual  literary  manipulation."  1 

It  was  in  1739  that  Captain  Augustine  Wash- 
ington moved  to  Fredericksburg,  a  little  town  on 
the  Rappahannock,  founded  in  1727,  by  Colonel 
Willis,  husband  of  Washington's  aunt  and  god- 
mother. The  family  before  this  had  resided,  di- 
rectly after  George's  birth,  at  Hunting  Creek  (after- 
wards Mount  Vernon),  having  left  Wakefield  for 
that  purpose.  Mr.  Conway  establishes  the  fact  that 
Washington's  earliest  recollections  were  with  the 
beautiful  estate  belonging  to  his  half-brother  Law- 
rence, and  named  by  him  "  Mount  Vernon,"  in 
honour  of  the  gallant  English  admiral  under  whom 
he  had  served  at  Carthagena  and  Porto  Bello. 

"  Among   the    shiploads    of   convicts   probably   im- 

1 M.  D.  Conway's  George  Washington's  Rules  of  Civility, 
1890,  pp.  7-8. 


14  George  Washington 

ported  for  labour  purposes  by  Captain  Augustine 
Washington,  was  one  who  had  scholarly  attainments, 
possibly  a  political  exile,  to  whom,  after  his  mother, 
Washington  owed  his  earliest  teaching.  Some  among 
these  convicts  were  learned  Scotchmen,  men  of  rank 
and  distinction,  exiles  for  conscience'  sake  after  Crom- 
well's insurrection  and  the  return  of  the  Stuarts ;  they 
were  not  necessarily  criminals.  Indentured  servants 
and  '  Redemptioners  '  (men  who  purchased  their  free- 
dom, in  exchange  for  their  passage  money  over  the 
Atlantic)  were  often  persons  of  some  literary  accom- 
plishment, who  taught  the  children  of  their  employers 
and  thus  ingratiated  themselves  as  schoolmasters, 
clerks,  bookkeepers,  and  the  like  with  the  high-born 
Virginia  families.  The  classical  scholar  need  not  be 
reminded  of  Epictetus,  ^Esop,  and  Horace  for  exam- 
ples of  slaves  and  freedmen  who  have  become  the 
world's  most  celebrated  and  most  admired  teachers. 

"  Probably  the  school  founded  by  James  Marye 
[continues  Mr.  Conway]  was  the  first  in  the  New 
World  in  which  good  manners  were  seriously  taught. 
Nay,  where  is  there  any  such  school  to-day?  Just 
this  one  colonial  school,  by  the  good  fortune  of  having 
for  its  master  or  superintendent,  an  ex-Jesuit  French 
scholar,  we  may  suppose  instructed  in  civility ;  and 
out  of  that  school,  it  was  little  more  than  a  village, 
came  an  exceptionally  large  number  of  eminent  men. 
In  that  school,  three  American  Presidents  received 
their  early  education — Washington,  Madison,  and 
Monroe. 

"  In  the  manuscript  of  Colonel  Byrd  Willis,  already 
referred  to  (loaned  me  by  his  granddaughter,  Mrs. 
Tayloe,  of  Fredericksburg) ,  he  says :  '  My  father, 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 
From  the  painting  by  Gilbert  Stuart. 


At  the   Fireside  15 

Lewis  Willis,  was  a  schoolmate  of  General  Washing- 
ton, his  cousin,  who  was  two  years  his  senior.  He 
spoke  of  the  General's  industry  and  assiduity  at  school 
as  very  remarkable.  Whilst  his  brother  and  other 
boys  at  play-time  were  at  bandy  and  other  games,  he 
was  behind  the  door,  ciphering.  But  one  youthful 
ebullition  is  handed  down  while  at  that  school,  and 
that  was  romping  with  one  of  the  largest  girls.  This 
was  so  unusual  that  it  excited  no  little  comment  among 
the  other  lads.'  It  is  also  handed  down  that,  in  boy- 
hood, this  great  soldier,  though  never  a  prig,  had  no 
fights,  and  was  often  summoned  to  the  playground 
as  a  peacemaker,  his  arbitration  in  dispute  being  al- 
ways accepted." 

The  admirable  wisdom  of  the  no  "  Rules  of  Ci- 
vility "  must  have  sunk  deeply  into  the  heart  and 
soul  of  this  young  scholar  in  a  time  when  books  were 
few  and  scarce,  and  maxims  such  as  these  had  time 
to  germinate,  flower,  and  fruit  in  the  life  and  conduct 
of  the  susceptible  pupil.  The  last  of  these  useful 
maxims  became  the  guiding-star  of  Washington's 
whole  career : 

"  Labour  to  keep  alive  in  your  Breast  that  little 
Spark  of  Celestial  fire  called  Conscience." 

This  noble  saying,  due  to  the  wisdom  of  the  Jesuit 
Fathers  among  whom  the  Rev.  James  Marye  had 
been  educated,  and  of  whose  organisation  he  was 
once  a  member,  became  incarnate  in  the  life  of  the 
illustrious  American  whose  boyish  hand  transcribed 
it  in  quaint  copy-book  style  and  orthography.  "  The 
Rules  of  Civility  "  is,  in  its  way,  a  volume  on  Moral 


1 6  George  Washington 

Philosophy  whose  assimilation  and  digestion  are  ac- 
centuated at  every  point  of  Washington's  public  and 
private  life. 

The  Hebrew  nation,  in  its  Books  of  Wisdom,  had 
condensed  the  marvellous  essence  of  a  worldly  phi- 
losophy which  has  signally  influenced  its  entire  des- 
tiny and,  through  it,  the  fates  and  fortunes  of  every 
code  of  modern  jurisprudence. 

French  urbanity,  on  the  other  hand,  concentrates 
itself  in  these  golden  maxims  and,  by  a  happy  antici- 
pation, forehadows  the  profound  influence  of  France 
on  American  affairs.  It  is  a  prophecy  of  Lafayette. 


CHAPTER  II 

GREEN  WAY  COURT  I  AN  IDYLL  OF  THE  SUMMER 
ISLES 

OVER  the  spacious  plantations  of  Virginia  was 
scattered,  in  Washington's  youth,  a  popula- 
tion of  some  80,000  or  90,000  men,  women,  and 
children  who  had  come  thither  in  miscellaneous 
ways,  some  by  birth,  some  from  over  seas,  as  Bohe- 
mians and  wanderers  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  some 
urged  by  love  of  money,  traffic,  or  adventure,  others 
fired  by  the  imaginative  pictures  of  the  poet-travel- 
lers, Marco  Polo,  Sir  John  Mandeville,  or  Columbus. 
One  hundred  and  twenty-five  years  had  sped  swiftly 
by  since  the  first  ship  cast  anchor  off  Jamestown, 
and  the  first  load  of  anxious  immigrants  began 
gathering  up  their  old-world  belongings  and  drag- 
ging them  laboriously  and  cautiously  ashore.  The 
clock  of  the  Stuarts,  which  ticked  so  loudly  in  1607, 
had  subsided  into  the  even-paced  timepieces  of  the 
Georges,  two  of  whom  had  already  occupied  the 
throne  of  the  mother-country,  three  thousand  miles 
away.  The  two  or  three  little  fissures,  made  in  the 
mountain-wall  of  the  unexplored  New  World  at 
Hampton  Roads,  at  Plymouth,  at  Manhattan,  at 
Philadelphia,  had  widened  into  sluice-gates  through 
which  poured  ever-broadening  streams  of  European 
life  and  trade  and  population,  that  up  every  creek 


1 8  George  Washington 

and  river  and  valley  veined  the  land,  like  a  human 
face,  with  the  arteries  of  Eastern  civilisation,  and 
everywhere  sowed  sinuous  lines  of  settlements  from 
the  ocean  edge  to  the  great  inland  oceans  of  fresh 
water  that  stretched  far  to  the  north-west. 

Of  this  expanding  "  England  in  Virginia,"  Colo- 
nel Robert  Beverley,  its  picturesque  colonial  histo- 
rian, wrote  in  1705  1 : 

"  The  Country  being  thus  taken  into  the  King's 
Hands,  his  Majesty  was  pleased  to  establish  the  Con- 
stitution to  be  by  a  Governour,  Council  and  Assembly. 
.  .  .  This  was  a  Constitution  according  to  their  Hearts' 
Desire,  and  Things  seem'd  now  to  go  on  in  a  happy 
Course  for  Encouragement  of  the  Colony.  People 
flock'd  over  thither  apace ;  and,  not  minding  any  thing 
but  to  be  Masters  of  great  Tracts  of  Land,  they  planted 
themselves  separately  on  their  several  Plantations." 

It  is  no  wonder  that  the  land-loving  "  American  " 
of  that  day  distinguished  himself  by  taking  up  these 
enormous  tracts  of  land  when  we  read  on  in  Bever- 
ley: 

"  Here  they  enjoy  all  the  benefits  of  a  warm  Sun, 
and  by  their  shady  Groves,  are  protected  from  its  In- 
convenience. Here  all  their  Senses  are  entertain'd 
with  an  endless  Succession  of  Native  Pleasures.  Their 
Eyes  are  ravished  with  the  Beauties  of  naked  Nature. 
Their  Ears  are  Serenaded  with  the  perpetual  murmur 
of  Brooks,  and  the  thorow-base  which  the  Wind  plays, 
when  it  wantons  through  the  Trees;  the  merry  Birds, 
too,  join  their  pleasing  Notes  to  this  rural  Comfort; 

1  Robert  Beverley's   Virginia,  p.  47. 


Greenway  Court  19 

especially  the  Mock-birds,  who  love  Society  so  well, 
that  whenever  they  see  Mankind,  they  will  perch  upon 
a  Twigg  very  near  them,  and  sing  the  sweetest  wild 
Airs  in  the  World:  But  what  is  most  remarkable  in 
these  Melodious  Animals,  they  will  frequently  fly  at 
small  distances  before  a  Traveller  warbling  out  their 
Notes  several  Miles,  an  end,  and  by  their  Musick,  make 
a  Man  forget  the  Fatigues  of  his  Journey.  Their 
Taste  is  regaled  with  the  most  delicious  Fruits,  which 
without  Art,  they  have  in  great  Variety  and  Perfec- 
tion. And  then  their  smell  is  refreshed  with  an  eter- 
nal fragrancy  of  Flowers  and  Sweets,  with  which 
Nature  perfumes  and  adorns  the  Woods  almost  the 
whole  year  round.  Have  you  pleasure  in  a  Garden? 
All  things  thrive  in  it,  most  surprisingly;  you  Can't 
walk  by  a  Bed  of  Flowers,  but  besides  the  entertain- 
ment of  their  Beauty,  your  Eyes  will  be  saluted  with 
the  charming  colours  of  the  Humming  Bird,  which 
revels  among  the  Flowers,  and  licks  off  the  Dew  and 
Honey  from  their  tender  Leaves,  on  which  it  only 
feeds.  It's  size  is  not  half  so  large  as  an  English 
Wren,  and  its  colour  is  a  glorious  shining  mixture  of 
Scarlet,  Green,  and  Gold.  Colonel  Byrd,  in  his  Garden, 
which  is  the  finest  in  that  Country,  has  a  Summer- 
House  set  round  with  the  Indian  Honey-Suckle,  which 
all  the  Summer  is  continually  full  of  sweet  Flowers, 
in  which  these  Birds  delight  exceedingly.  Upon  these 
Flowers,  I  have  seen  ten  or  a  dozen  of  these  Beautiful 
Creatures  together,  which  sported  about  me  so  fa- 
miliarly, that  with  their  little  Wings  they  often  fann'd 
my  Face."  * 

This  delightful  Virginia  of  bird  and  beast  and 
1  Robert  Beverley's  Virginia,  p.  61. 


2O  George  Washington 

flower  emerges  from  fragrant  clouds  of  tobacco- 
smoke,  in  the  early  historians,  and  lends  itself  to 
anecdote  and  idyllic  description,  of  which  the  fol- 
lowing extract  gives  characteristic  specimens : 

"Among  other  Indian  Commodities,  they  brought 
over  Some  of  that  bewitching  Vegetable,  Tobacco. 
And  this  being  the  first  that  ever  came  to  England,  Sir 
Walter  thought  he  could  do  no  less  than  make  a  pres- 
ent of  Some  of  the  brightest  of  it  to  His  Roial  Mis- 
tress, for  her  own  Smoaking. 

"  The  Queen  graciously  accepted  of  it,  but  finding 
her  Stomach  sicken  after  two  or  three  Whiffs,  it  was 
presently  whispered  by  the  earl  of  Leicester's  Faction, 
that  Sir  Walter  had  certainly  Poison'd  Her.  But  Her 
Majesty  soon  recovering  her  Disorder,  obliged  the 
Countess  of  Nottingham  and  all  her  Maids  to  Smoak 
a  whole  Pipe  out  amongst  them. 

"  As  it  happen'd  some  Ages  before  to  be  the  fashion 
to  Saunter  to  the  Holy  Land,  and  go  upon  other 
Quixot  Adventures,  so  it  was  now  grown  the  Humour 
to  take  a  Trip  to  America."  1 

This  "  bewitching  vegetable  "  thus  cast  its  spell 
over  the  whole  lifetime  of  Colonial  Virginia,  as, 
later,  after  1776,  the  characteristic  fragrance  ema- 
nated from  tea. 

On  the  moral  and  intellectual  side  a  glimpse  of 
this  enchanted  Virginia  may  be  got  through  the  con- 
temporary eyes  of  the  Rev.  Hugh  Jones,  one  of  the 
Fellows  of  William  and  Mary  College,  and  its  chap- 
lain, who  wrote : 

1  The  History  of  the  Dividing  Line,  p.  5. 


Greenway  Court  21 

"  Virginia  equals,  if  not  exceeds,  all  others  in  Good- 
ness of  Climate,  Soil,  Health,  Rivers,  Plenty,  and  all 
Necessaries,  and  Conveniences  of  Life:  Besides  she 
has,  among  others,  these  particular  Advantages  of  her 
younger  Sister  Maryland,  viz.  Freedom  from  Popery, 
and  the  direction  of  Proprietors ;  not  but  that  Part  of 
Virginia,  which  is  between  the  Rivers  Potomack  and 
Rappahannock  belongs  to  Proprietors,  as  to  the  Quit- 
Rent;  yet  the  Government  of  these  Countries  (called 
the  Northern  Neck}  is  under  the  same  Regulation 
with  the  other  Parts  of  the  Country. 

"  If  New  England  be  called  a  Receptacle  of  Dissent- 
ers, and  an  Amsterdam  of  Religion,  Pennsylvania  the 
Nursery  of  Quakers,  Maryland  the  Retirement  of 
Roman  Catholicks,  North  Carolina  the  Refuge  of  Run- 
aways, and  South  Carolina  the  Delight  of  Buccaneers 
and  Pyrates,  Virginia  may  be  justly  esteemed  the  hap- 
py Retreat,  of  true  Britons  and  true  Churchmen  for  the 
most  Part ;  neither  soaring  too  high  nor  drooping  too 
low*  consequently  should  merit  the  greater  Esteem 
and  Encouragement. 

"  The  common  Planters  leading  easy  Lives  don't 
much  admire  Labour,  or  any  manly  Exercise,  except 
Horse-Racing,  nor  Diversion,  except  Cock-Fighting, 
in  which  some  greatly  delight.  This  easy  Way  of 
Living,  and  the  Heat  of  the  Summer  makes  some  very 
lazy,  who  are  then  said  to  be  Climate-struck."  1 

Again,  the  following  extract  illustrates  quaintly 
the  ultra  loyalty  and  churchmanship  of  the  Old  Vir- 
ginia parson,  burning  with  enthusiasm  for  King 
and  Church  and  drinking  confusion  to  all  Papists 
and  dissenters : 

1  The  State  of  Virginia,  Hugh  Jones,  p.  48. 


22  George  Washington 

"And  as  in  Words  and  Actions  they  (ministers) 
should  be  neither  too  reserved  nor  too  extravagant; 
so  in  Principles  should  they  be  neither  too  high  nor 
too  low:  The  Virginians  being  neither  Favourers  of 
Popery  nor  the  Pretender  on  the  one  Side,  nor  of 
Presbytery  nor  Anarchy  on  the  other ;  but  are  firm 
Adherents  to  the  Present  Constitution  in  State,  the 
Hanover  Succession  and  the  Episcopal  Church  of 
England  as  by  Law  established;  consequently  then 
if  these  are  the  Inclinations  of  the  people,  their  Minis- 
ters ought  to  be  of  the  same  Sentiments,  equally 
averse  to  papistical  and  schismatical  Doctrines,  and 
equally  free  from  Jacobitish  and  Oliverian  Tenets. 
These  I  confess  are  my  principles,  and  such  as  the 
Virginians  best  relish,  and  what  every  good  Clergy- 
man and  true  Englishman  (I  hope)  will  favour;  for 
such  will  never  refuse  to  say  with  me : 

God  bless  the  Church,  and  GEORGE  its  Defender, 
Convert  the  Fanaticks,  and  baulk  the  Pretender. 

"  For  our  Sovereign  is  undoubtedly  the  Defender 
and  Head  of  our  national  Church  of  England,  in  which 
Respect  we  may  pray  for  the  King  and  Church;  but 
Christ  is  the  Head  of  the  Universal  or  Catholick 
Church,  in  which  Respect  we  wish  Prosperity  to  the 
Church  and  King."  1 

These  "  climate-struck  "  Virginians  were  fast  de- 
veloping into  a  manly  and  valiant  race,  who  built 
for  themselves  log  palaces  on  the  margin  of  the 
illimitable  waste,  erected  forts  and  palisades  that 
soon  transformed  themselves  in  the  oceanlike  ver- 
dure around,  into  Miranda's  Enchanted  Isle  deep  in 
1  The  State  of  Virginia,  Hugh  Jones,  p.  96. 


Greenway  Court  23 

the  summer  woodlands,  and  lacking  only  the  "  glis- 
tening spangles,"  that  Captain  John  Smith  saw  in 
their  sylvan  streams,  to  bud  forth  into  true  Golcon- 
das  and  Islands  of  the  Blest,  albeit  anchored  fast 
not  in  the  waters  of  the  New  Atlantis,  but  to  the 
sturdy  trunks  of  the  ancient  aboriginal  forests. 

On  one  of  these  Summer  Isles  of  plantation  life, 
deep  in  the  primeval  woods,  far  out  on  the  outposts 
of  that  lovely  valley,  where  the  sparkling  Shenan- 
doah  danced  between  beautiful  mountains  on  its 
crystal  pilgrimage  to  the  Potomac,  had  settled 
Thomas,  Lord  Fairfax,  scion  of  the  illustrious  race 
that  had  served  under  Cromwell,  the  accomplished 
contributor  to  Addison's  Spectator,  on  lands,  mil- 
lions of  acres  of  which  he  had  taken  up  by  patent 
or  purchase  at  the  time  of  which  we  speak. 

The  emotions  of  the  merchant  adventurers,  as 
they  sighted  these  lands  of  the  Hesperides  and  the 
charms  of  the  environing  scenery,  are  vividly  por- 
trayed for  us  by  an  accomplished  antiquary  and 
annalist  of  these  virgin  times : 

"  It  requires  no  extraordinary  imagination  to  ap- 
preciate the  emotions  which  stirred  the  breasts  of  the 
voyagers  as  they  entered  the  Chesapeake,  and  sailed 
up  the  wide  stretches  of  the  Powhatan  in  the  spring 
of  1607.  Those  were  hours  that  offered  the  amplest 
compensation  for  all  the  hardships  which  they  had 
endured.  They  had  just  finished  a  tedious  and  dan- 
gerous passage  on  the  bosom  of  unknown  seas.  In 
the  bleakest  period  of  winter,  under  leaden  skies  and 
with  sombre  landscapes,  the  country  which  they  had 


24  George  Washington 

reached  would  have  been  delightful  to  them;  but, 
clothed  in  the  verdure  of  the  Virginian  May,  when 
the  greenness  of  the  foliage  and  the  tints  of  the  wild 
flowers  have  their  deepest  and  softest  coloring,  it  was 
quite  natural  that  visions  of  an  earthly  Paradise  should 
have  arisen  before  their  eyes,  accustomed  for  so  long 
a  time  to  the  heaving  plains  of  the  Atlantic.  The 
lofty  trees  on  the  banks,  representing  many  familiar 
and  many  new  varieties,  the  noble  breadth  of  the  river, 
the  balmy  air  laden  with  the  odors  of  expanding  leaf 
and  blossom,  the  clearness  of  the  atmosphere  which 
produced  such  striking  vividness  of  coloring,  the 
bright  sunshine,  the  strange  birds,  adorned  with  so 
many  brilliant  hues,  flying  hither  and  thither  over  the 
surface  of  the  stream,  or  moving  about  in  the 
branches  of  the  trees  that  grew  near  its  brink,  the 
schools  of  fish  that  were  constantly  breaking  the  sur- 
face of  the  river  into  patches  of  flashing  silver,  the 
painted  savages  staring  at  the  little  fleet  as  it  passed 
slowly  along,  all  united  to  create  a  novel  scene  touch- 
ing the  sensibilities  of  the  dullest  and  most  prosaic  of 
the  adventurers.  Nor  was  it  the  less  inspiring  when 
they  recalled  that  they  were  the  first  persons  of  their 
race  to  look  upon  that  beautiful  expanse  of  river  and 
forest,  which,  for  a  length  of  time  almost  incalculable, 
had  existed  just  as  they  saw  it  then. 

"  The  charming  impressions  as  to  the  physical  as- 
pect  of  the  country  were  confirmed  by  subsequent  obj 
servations.  Sir  Thomas  Dale,  writing  in  1613,  only 
a  few  years  after  the  first  colony  was  established  on 
Jamestown  Island,  declared  that  his  admiration  of 
Virginia  increased  as  his  opportunities  for  informing 
himself  about  its  resources  enlarged,  and  that  he  be- 


Greenway  Court  25 

lieved  that  it  would  be  equivalent  to  all  the  best  parts 
of  Europe  taken  together,  if  it  were  only  brought 
under  cultivation  and  divided  among  industrious 
people.  Percy  was  equally  emphatic  in  asserting  that 
if  the  promoters  of  the  Virginian  enterprise  would 
only  extend  the  adventurers  a  hearty  support,  the  new 
country  would  be  as  profitable  to  England,  in  time, 
as  the  Indies  had  long  been  to  the  King  of  Spain. 
Whitaker  describes  it  as  a  place  beautified  by  God 
with  all  the  ornaments  of  nature,  and  enriched  with 
his  earthly  treasures.  '  Heaven  and  Earth,'  exclaimed 
Captain  Smith,  '  never  agreed  better  to  frame  a  place 
for  man's  habitation.'  Williams  apostrophized  it  as 
Virginia  the  fortunate,  the  incomparable,  the  garden 
of  the  world !  which,  although  covered  with  a  natural 
grove,  yet  was  of  an  aspect  so  delightful  and  attract- 
ive, that  the  most  melancholy  eye  could  not  look  upon 
it  '  without  contentment,  nor  be  contented  without  ad- 
miration.' '  For  exactness  of  temperature,  goodness 
of  soil,  variety  of  staples,  and  capability  of  receiving 
whatever  else  is  produced  in  any  part  of  the  world, 
Virginia,'  he  remarks,  '  gives  the  right  hand  of  pre-em- 
inence to  no  province  under  heaven/  '  Where  nature 
is  so  amiable  in  its  naked  kind/  asks  the  author  of 
Nova  Britannia,  '  what  may  we  not  expect  from  it  in 
Virginia  when  it  is  assisted  by  human  industry,  and 
when  both  art  and  nature  shall  join  to  give  the  best 
content  to  men  and  all  other  creatures ? '  'I  have 
travailed/  said  a  leading  member  of  the  London  Com- 
pany, '  by  land  over  eighteen  several  kingdoms  and 
yet  all  of  them,  in  my  minde,  come  farr  short  to  Vir- 
ginia/ 

"  Such  in  part  was  the  testimony  as  to  the  general 


26  George  Washing-ton 


beauty  and   fertility  of  Virginia  in  its  original  con- 
dition." 1 

Greenway  Court,  the  home  of  the  Fairfaxes 
(twelve  miles  S.  W.  of  Winchester),  was  the  spot 
in  this  picturesque  Virginia  whither  the  youthful 
Washington,  at  sixteen,  now  wended  his  way,  eager 
to  begin  the  work  of  surveying,  for  which  he  had 
specially  prepared  himself  under  Master  Williams 
and  the  Rev.  James  Marye.  Uncertain  as  the  times 
are,  we  yet  catch  direct  and  searching  glimpses  of 
young  Washington,  as  he  flits  to  and  fro  in  the  fluc- 
tuating anecdote  biographies  of  a  later  time  eager  to 
glean  every  ray  of  light  radiating  from  this  obscure 
period,  and  to  concentrate  it  upon  the  figure  of  the 
growing  man.  From  wills  and  letters  and  genealo- 
gies, from  clerks'  records  and  dusty  church-wardens' 
books,  from  bundles  of  yellow  MSS.  tied  up  and 
stored  away  in  antique  secretaries,  from  private 
stores  and  public  record-offices,  pours  this  light  and 
floods  many  a  dark  corner  of  Virginia  history, 
Mrs.  Pryor  has  vividly  illuminated  the  twilight 
period  of  Washington's  life  as  follows : 

"  Augustine  Washington  selected  a  fine  site  on  the 
banks  of  the  Rappahannock,  opposite  Fredericksburg, 
and  near  '  Sting  Ray  Island/  where  the  very  fishes 
of  the  stream  had  resented  the  coming  of  Captain 
John  Smith.  The  name  of  this  home  was  Pine  Grove. 
The  situation  was  commanding,  and  the  garden  and 
orchard  in  better  cultivation  than  those  they  had  left. 

1  Bruce,  Economic  History  of  Virginia  in  the  Seventeenth 
Century,  vol.  i,  pp.  73-75. 


Green  way  Court  27 

The  house  was  like  that  at  Wakefield,  broad  and  low, 
with  the  same  number  of  rooms  upon  the  ground  floor, 
one  of  them  in  the  shed-like  extension  at  the  back ; 
and  the  spacious  attic  was  over  the  main  building.  It 
had  its  name  from  a  noble  body  of  trees  near  it,  but 
was  also  known  by  the  old  neighbors  as  '  Ferry  Farm/ 
There  was  no  bridge  over  the  Rappahannock,  and 
communication  was  had  with  the  town  by  the  neigh- 
bouring ferry.  '  Those  who  wished  to  associate  Wash- 
ington,' says  another  writer,  '  with  the  grandeurs  of 
stately  living  in  his  youth,  would  find  all  their  theories 
dispelled  by  a  glimpse  of  the  modest  dwelling  where 
he  spent  his  boyhood  years.  But  nature  was  bountiful 
in  its  beauties  in  the  lovely  landscape  that  stretched 
before  it.  In  Overwharton  parish,  where  it  was  sit- 
uated, the  family  had  many  excellent  neighbors.,  and 
there  came  forth  from  this  little  home  a  race  of  men 
whose  fame  could  gather  no  splendor,  had  the  roofs 
which  sheltered  their  childhood  been  fretted  with  gold 
and  blazoned  with  diamonds.  The  heroic  principle  in 
our  people  does  not  depend  for  perpetuity  on  family 
trees  and  ancestral  dignities,  still  less  on  baronial  man- 
sions.' 

"Augustine  Washington  died  in  1743,  at  the  age  of 
forty-nine,  at  Pine  Grove,  leaving  two  sons  of  his 
first  wife,  and  four  sons  and  one  daughter  our  Mary 
had  borne  to  him,  little  Mildred  having  died  in  in- 
fancy. We  know  then  the  history  of  those  thirteen 
years,  the  birth  of  six  children,  the  death  of  one,  fin- 
ally the  widowhood  and  desolation  of  the  mother. 

"  At  the  time  of  his  father's  death,  George  Wash- 
ington was  only  eleven  years  of  age.  He  had  been 
heard  to  say  that  he  knew  little  of  his  father  except 


28  George  Washington 

the  remembrance  of  his  person  and  of  his  parental 
fondness.  To  his  mother's  forming  care  he  himself 
ascribed  the  origin  of  his  fortune  and  his  fame. 

"  Mary  Washington  was  not  yet  thirty-six,  the  age 
at  which  American  women  are  supposed  to  attain  their 
highest  physical  perfection.  Her  husband  had  left  a 
large  estate  under  her  management,  to  be  surrendered 
in  portions  as  each  child  reached  majority.  Their 
land  lay  in  different  parts  of  the  country, — Fairfax, 
Stafford,  King  George,  and  Westmoreland.  She 
found  herself  a  member  of  a  large  and  influencial 
society,  which  had  grown  rapidly  in  wealth,  import- 
ance, and  elegance  of  living  since  her  girlhood  and 
early  married  life  in  Westmoreland.  Her  stepson, 
Lawrence,  married  a  few  months  after  his  father's 
death,  and  she  was  thus  allied  to  the  Fairfaxes  of  Bel- 
voir — allied  the  more  closely  because  of  the  devo- 
tion of  Lawrence  to  her  own  son  George.  Lawrence, 
with  his  pretty  Anne  Fairfax,  had  gone  to  live  on  his 
inherited  estate  of  '  Hunting  Creek,'  which  he  made 
haste  to  rechristen  in  honor  of  an  English  admiral, 
famous  for  having  recently  reduced  the  town  and  for- 
tification at  Porto  Bello ;  famous  for  having  reduced 
the  English  sailors'  rum  by  mixing  it  with  water.  He 
was  wont  to  pace  his  decks  wrapped  in  a  grogram 
cloak.  The  irate  sailors  called  him  and  the  liquor  he 
had  spoiled,  '  Old  Grog.'  The  irreverent,  fun-loving 
Virginians  at  once  caught  up  the  word,  and  hence- 
forth all  unsweetened  drinks  of  brandy  or  rum  and 
water  were  '  grog,'  and  all  unstable  partakers  thereof, 
'  groggy.'"  * 

1  Mrs.  Pryor,  The  Mother  of  Washington  and  Her  Times, 
p.  90. 


Greenway  Court  29 

The  fertility  of  the  New  World  soil  was  at  least 
paralleled  by  that  of  the  immigrant  families,  the 
abundance  of  the  land  being  often  more  than 
matched  by  the  superabundance  of  the  children. 
The  numerous  and  prolific  marriages  had  rapidly 
peopled  the  Old  Dominion  with  a  steady  growing 
stock  of  sturdy  planters  and  settlers,  for  whom  pro- 
vision had  to  be  made  by  anxious  fathers  and  moth- 
ers, whether  among  the  lands  already  possessed  by 
patent,  purchase,  or  marriage,  or  in  the  new  coun- 
tries and  directions  everywhere  opening  westward 
and  southward  toward  the  central  rivers  and  valleys 
of  the  American  Continent. 

There  were  six  sons  of  Augustine  Washington 
(two  by  the  first  and  four  by  the  second  marriage) 
to  be  provided  for,  thought  of,  settled  in  life,  liber- 
ally allowanced,  as  became  Virginia  gentlemen. 
Lawrence  (the  eldest)  was  a  graceful  and  polished 
cavalier  who  had  entered  the  British  Navy,  married 
a  Fairfax  of  Belvoir,  begun  the  erection  of  the 
stately  chateau  of  Mount  Vernon  in  1743-45,  and 
had  been  amply  remembered  by  his  father.  There 
were  still  John  and  George,  Charles,  Samuel,  and 
Augustine  (called  August)  to  be  considered. 

The  fascination  which  the  sea  had  exercised  over 
Lawrence  Washington,  and  the  possession  of  influ- 
ential friends  in  that  quarter,  probably  impelled  him 
to  select  the  navy  as  a  promising  possibility  for 
George  to  whom  he  was  specially  devoted. 

Accordingly,  when  George  was  fourteen,  a  mid- 
shipman's warrant  was  obtained  for  him,  every  prep- 


3o  George  Washington 

aration  was  made  for  his  departure,  the  very  ship 
on  which  he  was  to  take  up  his  new  life  lay  at  anchor 
in  the  Potomac,  when  the  anguish  and  timidity  of 
Madam  Washington,  and  an  emphatic  letter  of  dis- 
approval from  her  brother  Joseph  Ball,  who  was 
living  at  Stratford-by-Bowe,  near  London,  broke  up 
the  arrangement  and  George's  career  as  a  future 
Nelson  or  De  Ruyter  was  for  ever  closed. 

Mr.  Joseph  Ball's  letter,  as  Bishop  Meade  quotes 
it  in  Old  Families  of  Virginia,  is  as  follows. 1 

"  Stratford-by-Bow,  ipth  of  May,  1747. 

"  I  understand  that  you  are  advised  and  have  some 
thoughts  of  putting  your  son  George  to  sea.  I  think 
he  had  better  be  put  apprentice  to  a  tinker,  for  a  com- 
mon sailor  before  the  mast  has  by  no  means  the  com- 
mon liberty  of  the  subject;  for  they  will  press  him 
from  a  ship  where  he  has  fifty  shillings  a  month  and 
make  him  take  twenty-three,  and  cut  and  slash  and 
use  him  like  a  negro,  or  rather  like  a  dog.  And,  as 
to  any  considerable  preferment  in  the  navy,  it  is  not 
to  be  expected,  as  there  are  always  so  many  gaping 
for  it  here  who  have  interest,  and  he  has  none.  And 
if  he  should  get  to  be  master  of  a  Virginia  ship  (which 
it  is  very  difficult  to  do),  a  planter  that  has  three  or 
four  hundred  acres  of  land  and  three  or  four  slaves, 
if  he  be  industrious,  may  live  more  comfortably,  and 
leave  his  family  in  better  bread,  than  such  a  master 
of  a  ship  can.  .  .  .  He  must  not  be  too  hasty  to 
be  rich,  but  go  on  gently  and  with  patience,  as  things 
will  naturally  go.  This  method,  without  aiming  at 

1  Old  Churches,  etc.,  vol.  ii,  p.  128. 


Greenway  Court  31 

being  a  fine  gentleman  before  his  time,  will  carry  a 

man  more  comfortably  and  surely  through  the  world 

than  going  to  sea,  unless  it  be  a  great  chance  indeed. 

"  I  pray  God  keep  you  and  yours. 

"  Your  loving  brother, 

"  JOSEPH  BALL." 

It  would  form  an  interesting  subject  of  specula- 
tion to  conjecture  what  would  have  been  Washing- 
ton's future  in  that  wonderful  playground  of  am- 
bition, intellect,  personal  gallantry,  and  world-wide 
opportunity — the  British  Navy;  to  what  heights  his 
noble,  disinterested  soul  might  have  risen,  what 
effect  such  a  career  would  have  had  in  determining 
his  patriotism,  and  the  yet  unknown  future  of 
American  independence.  Even  before  he  was  out 
of  his  teens,  Washington  was  already  exhibiting 
qualities  so  remarkable,  at  the  very  threshold  of  his 
life,  that  there  is  small  doubt  of  his  winning  su- 
preme distinction  in  any  position  where  high  sense 
of  duty,  firm  practical  intelligence,  passionate  loy- 
alty to  principle,  and  untiring  devotion  to  the  good 
of  his  beloved  Virginia  were  involved. 

The  intimacy  with  the  Fairfaxes  of  Belvoir  had 
doubtless  early  brought  the  boy  under  the  notice  of 
Thomas,  Lord  Fairfax,  whose  lordly  domain,  almost 
unexplored,  a  virgin  terra  incognita,  stretched  away 
westward  over  the  Blue  Ridge,  in  unsurveyed  opu- 
lence. Surveying  was  then  one  of  the  lucrative 
professions  for  a  young  man  of  practical  ability.  An 
enormous  acreage  of  public  and  private  land  lay 
practically  unknown,  outside  the  reach  of  the  asses- 


32  George  Washington 

sor.  There  was  doubtless,  too,  a  charm  in  the  track- 
less wilderness  which  exercised  its  magic  over  many 
a  young  Virginian's  imagination,  and  sent  him  into 
the  woods  on  missions  of  which  surveying  was  only 
one, — possibly  only  an  excuse. 

With  Washington,  however,  it  was  never  an  ex- 
cuse but  a  sober,  serious  profession  which  he  pur- 
sued to  the  end  of  his  days,  with  which  fact,  any 
student  of  his  journals  and  note-books,  from  1748 
to  1799,  may  easily  familiarise  himself. 

His  exact,  detail-loving,  mathematical  mind  took 
delight  in  the  clank  of  the  surveyor's  chain,  which 
suggested  to  him  not  the  groan  of  the  slave  so  much 
as  the  boundless  freedom  of  the  limitless,  forest- 
crowned  horizon. 

In  1748,  a  month  before  he  had  actually  reached 
his  sixteenth  year,  Madam  Washington's  eldest  son 
(who  had  received  his  name  from  George  Eskridge, 
her  trusted  friend,  says  Mrs.  Pryor)  was  in  the 
employ  of  Lord  Fairfax  as  salaried  surveyor,  at 
seven  pistoles  a  day.  And  out  of  the  almost  mythic 
recesses  of  this  period,  comes  a  delicate  murmur 
and  reverberation,  reminding  us  that  this  extraordi- 
nary boy  was  human,  quelling  our  mythopoetic  ten- 
dencies, and  humanising  him  in  a  half  ludicrous,  half 
pathetic  way:  the  "  Idyll  of  the  Summer  Isles  "  was 
writing  its  prologue.  Was  it  the  "  romping  girl  " 
of  Fredericksburg,  or  some  one  of  those  five  early 
sweethearts  who  evoked  the  genius  of  doggerel  in 
the  Father  of  his  Country,  and  made  his  tongue  spell 
out  the  difficult  acrostic?  At  all  events,  there  is 


THE  FIRST  CABINET. 
From  an  old  print. 


Greenway  Court  33 

something  delightfully  human  in  the  way  he  ad- 
dresses this  unknown  "  Frances,"  as  there  was,  in 
after  years,  in  the  affectionate  "  Patsy  "  by  which 
he  addressed  the  dark-eyed  widow  of  Daniel  Parke 
Custis. 


CHAPTER  III 

A    BOY'S    JOURNAL 

«1T  should  be  mentioned,  however,"  says  Mr.  M. 

1  D.  Conway,  "  that  young  Washington's  head 
was  not  in  the  least  turned  by  intimacy  with  the  aris- 
tocracy. He  wrote  letters  to  his  former  playmates  in 
which  no  snobbish  line  is  discoverable.  He  writes  to 
his  '  Dear  friend  Robin  ' :  '  My  place  of  residence  is  at 
present  at  his  lordship's  where  I  might,  was  my  heart 
disengaged,  pass  my  time  very  pleasantly,  as  there's  a 
very  agreeable  young  lady  lives  in  the  same  house 
(Colonel  George  Fairfax's  wife's  sister).  But  as  that's 
only  adding  fuel  to  fire  it  makes  me  the  more  uneasy, 
for  by  often  and  unavoidably  being  in  company  with 
her  revives  my  former  passion  for  your  Lowland  beau- 
ty ;  whereas,  was  I  to  live  more  retired  from  young 
women,  I  might  elevate  in  some  measure  my  sorrows 
by  burying  that  chaste  and  troublesome  passion  in  the 
grave  of  oblivion  or  etearnall  forgetfulness,  for,  as  I 
am  very  well  assured,  that's  the  only  antidote  or  rem- 
edy that  I  ever  shall  be  relieved  by  or  only  recess  that 
can  administer  any  cure  or  help  to  me,  as  I  am  well 
convinced,  was  I  ever  to  attempt  anything,  I  should 
only  get  a  denial  which  would  be  only  adding  grief 
to  uneasiness.' 

''  The  young  lady  at  Greenway  Court  was  Mary 
Cary,  and  the  Lowland  beauty  was  Betsy  Fauntleroy, 
\vhose  hand  Washington  twice  sought,  but  who  be- 

34 


A  Boy's  Journal  35 

came  the  wife  of  the  Hon.  Thomas  Adams.  While 
travelling  on  his  surveys,  often  among  the  Red  Men, 
the  youth  sometimes  gives  vent  to  his  feelings  in  verse. 

'  Oh  Ye  Gods,  why  should  my  Poor  resistless  Heart 

Stand  to  oppose  thy  might  and  Power 
At  last  surrender  to  Cupid's  feather'd  Dart 

And  now  lays  bleeding  every  Hour 
For  her  that's  Pityless  of  my  grief  and  Woes, 

And  will  not  on  me  Pity  take. 
I'll  sleep  among  my  most  inveterate  Foes 

And  with  gladness  never  wish  to  wake, 
In  deluding  sleepings  let  my  Eyelids  close 

That  in  an  enraptured  dream  I  may 
In  a  rapt  lulling  sleep  and  gentle  repose 

Possess  those  joys  denied  by  Day.' 

"  And  it  must  also  be  recorded  that  if  he  had  learned 
how  to  conduct  himself  in  the  presence  of  persons  su- 
perior to  himself  in  position,  age,  and  culture,  —  and 
it  will  be  remembered  that  Lord  Fairfax  was  an  able 
contributor  to  the  Spectator  (which  Washington  was 
careful  to  study  while  at  Greenway), — this  youth  no 
less  followed  the  instruction  of  his  io8th  rule :  '  Hon- 
our your  natural  parents  though  they  be  poor.'  His 
widowed  mother  was  poor,  and  she  was  ignorant,  but 
he  was  devoted  to  her ;  being  reverential  and  gracious 
to  her  even  when,  with  advancing  age,  she  became 
somewhat  morose  and  exacting,  while  he  was  loaded 
with  public  cares. 

"  I  am  no  worshipper  of  Washington.  But  in  the 
hand  of  that  man  of  strong  brain  and  powerful  pas- 
sions once  lay  the  destiny  of  the  New  World, — in  a 
sense,  human  destiny.  But  for  his  possession  of  the 
humility  and  self-discipline  underlying  his  Rules  of 
Civility,  the  ambitious  politicians  of  the  United  States 


36  George  Washington 

might,  to-day,  be  popularly  held  to  a  much  lower 
standard.  The  tone  of  his  character  was  so  entirely 
that  of  modesty,  he  was  so  fundamentally '  patriotic, 
that  even  his  faults  are  transformed  to  virtues,  and 
the  very  failures  of  his  declining  years  are  popularly 
accounted  successes.  He  alone  was  conscious  of  his 
mental  decline,  and  gave  this  as  a  reason  for  not  ac- 
cepting a  third  nomination  for  the  Presidency.  This 
humility  has  established  an  unwritten  law  of  limita- 
tion on  vaulting  presidential  ambitions.  Indeed,  in- 
trigue and  corruption  in  America  must  ever  struggle 
with  the  idealised  phantom  of  this  grand  personality."  1 
"  His  lordship  "  was  no  other  than  Thomas,  Lord 
Fairfax,  "  who,"  says  a  well-known  historian,  "  himself 
came  to  Virginia  in  1746 — a  man  strayed  out  of  the 
world  of  fashion  at  fifty-five  into  the  forests  of  a  wild 
frontier.  The  better  part  of  his  ancestral  estates  in 
Yorkshire  had  been  sold  to  satisfy  the  creditors  of  his 
spendthrift  father.  These  untilled  stretches  of  land 
in  the  Old  Dominion  were  now  become  the  chief  part 
of  his  patrimony.  'T  was  said,  too,  that  he  had  suf- 
fered a  cruel  misadventure  in  love  at  the  hands  of  a 
fair  jilt  in  London,  and  so  had  become  the  austere,  ec- 
centric bachelor  he  showed  himself  to  be  in  the  free 
and  quiet  colony.  A  man  of  taste  and  culture,  he  had 
written  with  Addison  and  Steele  for  the  Spectator;  a 
man  of  the  world,  he  had  acquired,  for  all  his  reserve, 
that  easy  touch  and  intimate  mastery  in  dealing  with 
men,  which  come  with  the  long  practice  of  such  men 
of  fashion  as  are  also  men  of  sense.  He  brought  with 
him  to  Virginia,  though  past  fifty,  the  fresh  vigor  of 
a  young  man  eager  for  the  free  pioneer  life  of  such  a 

1  M.  D.  Conway,  Rules  of  Civility,  p.  43. 


A  Boy's  Journal  37 

province.  He  tarried  but  two  years  with  his  cousin, 
where  the  colony  had  settled  to  an  ordered  way  of 
living.  Then  he  built  himself  a  roomy  lodge,  shad- 
owed by  spreading  piazzas,  and  fitted  with  such  simple 
appointments  as  sufficed  for  comfort,  in  the  depths  of 
the  forest,  close  upon  seventy  miles  away,  within  the 
valley  of  the  Shenandoah,  where  a  hardy  frontier 
people  had  but  begun  to  gather.  The  great  manor- 
house  he  had  meant  to  build  was  never  begun.  The 
plain  comforts  of  '  Greenway  Court '  satisfied  him 
more  and  more  easily  as  the  years  passed,  and  the 
habits  of  a  simple  life  grew  increasingly  pleasant  and 
familiar,  till  thirty  years  and  more  had  slipped  away 
and  he  was  dead,  at  ninety-one,  broken-hearted,  men 
said,  because  the  King's  government  had  fallen  upon 
final  defeat  and  was  done  with  in  America. 

"  It  was  in  the  company  of  these  men,  and  of  those 
who  naturally  gathered  about  them  in  that  hospitable 
country,  that  George  Washington  was  bred.  '  A 
stranger  had  no  more  to  do/  says  Beverley,  '  but  to  en- 
quire upon  the  road  where  any  gentleman  or  good 
housekeeper  lived,  and  there  he  might  depend  upon 
being  received  with  hospitality,'  and  't  was  certain 
many  besides  strangers  would  seek  out  the  young 
major  at  Mount  Vernon,  whom  his  neighbors  had 
hastened  to  make  their  representative  in  the  House  of 
Burgesses,  and  the  old  soldier  of  the  soldierly  house 
of  Fairfax,  who  was  President  of  the  King's  Council, 
and  so  next  to  the  Governor  himself.  A  boy  who  was 
much  at  Mount  Vernon  and  at  Mr.  Fairfax's  seat, 
Belvoir,  might  expect  to  see  not  a  little  that  was  worth 
seeing  of  the  life  of  the  colony."  * 

1  Woodrow  Wilson,  George  Washington,  pp.  49-51. 


38  George  Washington 

Thus  it  was  that  this  great  heart,  in  the  immediate 
presence  of  a  scion  of  the  Old  World,  began  to  feel 
those  human  dreams  and  pangs  to  which  every  one 
has  been  subject  since  the  world  began. 

At  sixteen,  the  precocious,  self-educated  boy  wrote 
the  following  Journal,  which,  full  as  it  is  of  boyish 
inaccuracies,  is  interesting  not  only  as  the  first  piece 
of  authentic  connected  composition  from  his  hand, 
but  still  more  so,  psychologically,  as  revealing  his 
early  grasp  of  detail  when  almost  a  child.  Already 
one  sees  in  it  that  developing  force  which  led  Gov- 
ernor Dinwiddie,  six  years  later,  to  send  him  as  a 
kind  of  Ambassador  to  the  French,  in  the  Ohio 
Valley,  and  publish,  at  the  expense  of  the  State,  his 
graphically  written  Journal  of  the  expedition. 

"  JOURNAL  OF  A  BOY  SURVEYOR 

"Friday,  March  nth,  1747-8.  Began  my  Jour- 
ney in  company  with  George  Fairfax,  Esqr. ;  we  trav- 
ell'd  this  day  40  miles  to  Mr.  George  Neavels  in  Prince 
William  County. 

"  Saturday,  March  I2th.  This  Morning  Mr.  James 
Genn,  ye  surveyor,  came  to  us;  we  travell'd  over  ye 
Blue  Ridge  to  Capt.  Ashbys  on  Shannandoah  River. 
Nothing  remarkable  happen'd. 

"  Sunday,  March  i3th.  Rode  to  his  Lordship's 
Quarter  about  4  miles  higher  up  ye  river.  We  went 
through  most  beautiful  Groves  of  Sugar  Trees,  and 
spent  ye  last  part  of  ye  Day  in  admiring  ye  Trees  and 
richness  of  ye  Land. 

"  Monday  i4th.  We  sent  our  baggage  to  Capt. 
Hites  (near  Frederick  Town),  went  ourselves  down 


A  Boy's  Journal  39 

ye  River  about  16  miles  to  Capt.  Isaac  Pennington's 
(the  Land  exceeding  rich  and  fertile  all  ye  way — pro- 
duces abundance  of  Grain,  Hemp,  Tobacco,  &c.)  in 
order  to  lay  of[f]  some  Land  on  Gates  Marsh  and 
Long  Marsh. 

"  Tuesday  I5th.  We  set  out  early  with  intent  to 
run  round  ye  sd.  Land,  but  being  taken  in  a  rain,  and 
it  increasing  very  fast  obliged  us  to  return.  It  clear- 
ing about  one  o'clock  and  our  time  being  too  Precious 
to  loose,  we  a  second  time  ventured  out  and  worked 
hard  till  night,  then  returned  to  Penningtons.  We  got 
our  suppers  and  [I]  was  Lighted  into  a  Room  and  I 
not  being  so  good  a  woodsman  as  ye  rest  of  my  com- 
pany, striped  myself  very  orderly  and  went  into  ye  Bed, 
as  they  calld  it,  when  to  my  surprise,  I  found  it  to  be 
nothing  but  a  little  straw  matted  together  without 
sheets  or  any  thing  else,  but  only  one  thread  bear 
blanket  with  double  its  weight  of  vermin,  such  as  Lice, 
Fleas,  &c.  I  was  glad  to  get  up  (as  soon  as  ye  Light 
was  carried  from  us).  I  put  on  my  cloths  and  lay 
as  my  companions.  Had  we  not  been  very  tired,  I  am 
sure  we  should  not  have  slep'd  much  that  night.  I 
made  a  Promise  not  to  sleep  so  from  that  time  for- 
ward, chusing  rather  to  sleep  in  ye  open  air  before  a 
fire,  as  will  appear  hereafter. 

"  Wednesday  i6th.  We  set  out  early  and  finish'd 
about  one  o'clock  and  then  Travelled  up  to  Frederick 
Town,  where  our  Baggage  came  to  us.  We  cleaned 
ourselves  (to  get  Rid  of  ye  Game  we  had  catched  ye 
night  before).  I  took  a  Review  of  ye  Town  and  then 
return'd  to  our  Lodgings  where  we  had  a  good  Din- 
ner prepared  for  us.  Wine  and  Rum  Punch  in  plenty, 


4O  George  Washington 

and  a  good  Feather  Bed  with  clean  sheets,  which  was 
a  very  agreeable  regale. 

"  Thursday  I7th.  Rain'd  till  ten  o'clock  and  then 
clearing  we  reached  as  far  as  Major  Campbells,  one 
of  their  Burgesses  about  25  miles  from  Town.  Noth- 
ing remarkable  this  day  nor  night,  but  that  we  had 
a  Tolerable  good  Bed  [to]  lay  on. 

"  Friday  i8th.  We  Travell'd  up  about  35  miles  to 
Thomas  Barnwickes,  on  Potowmack,  where  we  found 
ye  River  so  excessively  high  by  reason  of  ye  great 
Rains  that  had  fallen  up  about  ye  Allegany  Mountains, 
as  they  told  us,  which  was  then  bringing  down  ye 
melted  snow  and  that  it  would  not  be  fordable  for 
several  Days.  It  was  then  about  six  foot  higher  than 
usual  and  was  rising.  We  agreed  to  stay  till  Monday. 
We  this  day  calld  to  see  ye  Fam'd  Warm  Springs. 
We  camped  out  in  ye  field  this  night.  Nothing  re- 
markable happened  till  Sunday  ye  2Oth. 

"  Sunday  2oth.  Finding  ye  river  not  much  abated 
we  in  the  evening  swam  our  horses  over  and  carried 
them  to  Charles  Polks  in  Maryland,  for  pasturage  till 
ye  next  Morning. 

"  Monday  2ist.  We  went  over  in  a  Canoe  and 
Travelled  up  Maryland  side  all  ye  Day  in  a  contin- 
ued Rain  to  Col.  Cresaps,  right  against  ye  mouth  of 
ye  South  Branch,  about  40  miles  from  Polks,  I  believe 
ye  worst  road  than  ever  was  trod  by  Man  or  Beast. 

"  Tuesday  22d.  Continued  Rain  and  ye  Freshes 
kept  us  at  Cresaps. 

"  Wednesday,  23d.  Raind  till  about  two  o'clock  and 
cleard,  when  we  were  agreeably  surprised  at  ye  sight 
of  thirty  odd  Indians  coming  from  war  with  only  one 
scalp.  We  had  some  Liquor  with  Us  of  which  we 


A  Boy's  Journal  41 

gave  them  Part,  it  elevating  there  spirits,  put  them  in 
ye  humor  of  Dauncing,  of  whom  we  had  a  War 
Daunce.  There  manner  of  Dauncing  is  as  follows, 
viz. :  They  clear  a  Large  Circle  and  make  a  great  Fire 
in  ye  middle.  Men  seat  themselves  around  it.  Ye 
speaker  makes  a  grand  speech,  telling  them  in  what 
manner  they  are  to  daunce.  After  he  has  finishd  ye 
best  Dauncer  jumps  up  as  one  awaked  out  of  a  sleep, 
and  Runs  and  Jumps  about  ye  Ring  in  a  most  cornicle 
manner.  He  is  followed  by  ye  Rest.  Then  begins 
there  musicians  to  Play.  Ye  musick  is  a  Pot  half  full 
of  water,  with  a  Deerskin  streched  over  it  as  tight  as 
it  can,  and  a  goard  with  some  shott  in  it  to  rattle  and 
a  Piece  of  an  horse's  tail  tied  to  it  to  make  it  look  fine. 
Ye  one  keeps  rattling  and  ye  others  drumming  all  ye 
while  ye  others  is  Dauncing. 

"  Fryday,  25th,  1748.  Nothing  remarkable  on 
thursday,  but  only  being  with  ye  Indians  all  day.  So 
shall  slip  it.  This  day  left  Cresaps  and  went  up  to  ye 
mouth  of  Paterson's  Creek,  and  there  swum  our 
horses  over,  got  over  ourselves  in  a  canoe  and  trav- 
elled up  ye  following  part  of  ye  Day  to  Abram 
Johnstones,  15  miles  from  ye  mouth,  where  we  camped. 

"  Saterday,  26.  Travell'd  up  ye  creek  to  Solomon 
Hedges,  Esq.,  one  of  his  Majesty's  Justices  of  ye 
Peace  for  ye  County  of  Frederick,  where  we  camped. 
When  we  came  to  supper  there  was  neither  a  Cloth 
upon  ye  Table  nor  a  knife  to  eat  with ;  but  as  good 
luck  would  have  it,  we  had  knives  of  our  own. 

"  Sunday,  2/th.  Travell'd  over  to  ye  South  Branch, 
attended  with  ye  Esqr.  to  Henry  Van  Metriss,  in  order 
to  go  about  Intended  work  of  Lots. 

"  Monday,  28th.     Travell'd  up  ye  Branch  about  30 


42  George  Washington 

miles  to  Mr.  James  Rutlidges  Horse  Jockey,  and  about 
70  miles  from  ye  mouth. 

"  Tuesday,  29th.  This  Morning  went  out  and  sur- 
veyd  five  hundred  acres  of  Land,  and  went  down  to 
one  Michael  Stumpe  on  ye  So.  Fork  of  ye  Branch. 
On  our  way  shot  two  wild  Turkies. 

"  Wednesday,  3Oth.  This  Morning  began  our  In- 
tended business  of  Laying  of[f]  Lots.  We  began  at 
ye  Boundary  Line  of  ye  Northern  10  miles  above 
Stumps,  and  run  of[f]  two  Lots,  and  return'd  to 
Stumps. 

"  Thursday,  3ist.  Early  this  Morning  one  of  our 
men  went  out  with  ye  gun,  and  soon  returned  with 
two  wild  Turkies.  We  then  went  to  our  business  run 
of[f]  three  lots,  and  returned  to  our  camping  place  at 
Stumps. 

"  Thursday  Fry  day,  April  ye  ist,  1748.  This  Morn- 
ing shot  twice  at  wild  Turkies  but  killd  none.  Run 
of[f]  three  Lots  and  returnd  to  camp. 

"  Saterday,  April  2d.  Last  night  was  a  blowing 
rainy  night.  Our  straw  catch'd  a  Fire,  yt.  we  were 
laying  upon.  I  was  luckily  preservd  by  one  of  our 
Men's  awaking  when  it  was  in  a  f1].  We  run  of[f] 
four  lots  this  day  which  reached  below  Stumps. 

"  Sunday,  3d.  Last  Night  was  a  much  more  bluster- 
ing night  than  ye  former.  We  had  our  tent  carried 
quite  of[f]  with  ye  wind,  and  was  obliged  to  Lie  ye 
latter  part  of  ye  night  without  covering.  There  came 
several  Persons  to  see  us  this  day.  One  of  our  men 
shot  a  wild  Turkic. 

"  Monday,  4th.  This  Morning  Mr.  Fairfax  left  us 
with  intent  to  go  down  by  ye  mouth  of  ye  Branch. 

1Word  erased. 


A  Boy's  Journal  43 

We  did  two  Lots  and  was  attended  by  a  great  Com- 
pany of  People,  men  Women,  and  children,  that  at- 
tended us  through  ye  woods  as  we  went,  shewing  there 
antick  tricks.  I  really  think  they  seem  to  be  as  igno- 
rant a  set  of  people  as  the  Indians.  They  would  never 
speak  English  but  when  spoken  to,  they  speak  all 
Dutch.  This  day  our  tent  was  blown  down  by  ye  vio- 
lentness  of  ye  wind. 

"  Tuesday,  5th.  We  went  out  and  did  4  Lots.  We 
were  attended  by  ye  same  Company  of  People,  yt.  we 
had  ye  day  before. 

"  Wednesday,  6th.  Last  night  was  so  Intolerably 
smoky  that  we  were  obliged  all  hands  to  leave  ye 
Tent  to  ye  Mercy  of  ye  wind  and  Fire.  This  day 
was  attended  by  our  afored,  Company,  up  till  about 
12  o'clock.  When  we  finished,  we  Travell'd  down  ye 
Branch  to  Henry  Van  Metriss.  On  our  journey  was 
catchd  in  a  very  heavy  rain.  We  got  under  a  straw 
House  until  ye  worst  of  it  was  over,  and  then  con- 
tinued our  Journey. 

"  Thursday,  7th.  Raind  successively  all  last  night. 
This  morning  one  of  our  men  killd  a  wild  Turkic  that 
weight  20  Pounds.  We  went  and  surveyd  15  Hun- 
dred acres  of  Land  and  returnd  to  Van  Metriss  about 
i  o'clock.  About  two  I  heard  that  Mr.  Fairfax  was 
come  up  and  at  i  Peter  Cassey's  about  2  miles  of[f] 
in  ye  same  old  field.  I  then  took  my  horse  and  went 
up  to  see  him.  We  eat  our  Dinners  and  walked  down 
to  Van  Metris's.  We  stayed  about  two  hours  and 
walked  back  again,  and  slept  in  Cassey's  House  which 
was  ye  first  night  I  had  slept  in  a  House  since  I  came 
up  to  ye  Branch. 

"  Fryday,  8th.    We  breakfasted  at  Cassey's  and  rode 


44  George  Washington 

down  to  Van  Metris's  to  get  all  our  Company  together, 
which  when  we  had  accomplished,  we  rode  down 
below  ye  Trough  in  order  to  lay  of[f]  Lots  there. 
We  laid  of[f]  one  this  day.  The  Trough  is  couple 
of  Ledges  of  Mountains,  impassable,  running  side  and 
side  together  for  above  7  or  8  miles  and  ye  River  down 
between,  them.  You  must  ride  round  ye  back  of  ye 
Mountain  for  to  get  below  them.  We  camped  this 
Night  in  ye  woods  near  a  wild  Meadow,  where  was  a 
large  stack  of  Hay.  After  we  had  pitched  our  Tent 
and  made  a  very  large  Fire,  we  pulled  out  our  Knap- 
sack, in  order  to  Recruit  ourselves.  Every  one  was 
his  own  cook.  Our  Spits  was  forked  Sticks,  our  Plates 
was  a  large  Chip ;  as  for  Dishes,  we  had  none. 

"  Saterday,  gth.  Set  ye  Surveyors  to  work,  whilst 
Mr.  Fairfax  and  myself  stayed  at  ye  Tent.  Our  Pro- 
vision being  all  exhausted  and  ye  Person  that  was  to 
bring  us  a  Recruit  disappointing  us,  we  were  obliged 
to  go  without  untill  we  could  get  some  from  ye  neigh- 
bors, which  was  not  untill  4  or  5  o'clock  in  ye  Evening. 
We  then  took  leaves  of  ye  Rest  of  our  Company,  road 
down  to  John  Colins  in  order  to  set  of[f]  ye  next 
Day  homewards. 

"  Sunday,  loth.  We  took  our  farewell  of  ye  Branch 
and  travelld  over  Hills  and  Mountains  to  Coddys,  on 
Great  Cacapehon,  about  40  miles. 

"Monday,  nth.  We  travelld  from  Coddys  down 
to  Frederick  Town,  where  we  reached  about  12  o'clock. 
We  dined  in  Town  and  then  went  to  Capt.  Kites  and 
lodged. 

"Tuesday,  1 2th.— We  set  of[f]  from  Capt.  Kites 
in  order  to  go  over  Wms.  Gap's  about  20  miles,  and 
after  riding  about  20  miles  we  had  20  to  go,  for  we 


A  Boy's  Journal  45 

had  lost  ourselves  and  got  up  as  high  as  Ashby's  Bent. 
We  did  get  over  Wms.  Gap  that  night,  and  as  low  as 
Wm.  West  in  Fairfax  County,  18  miles  from  ye  Top 
of  ye  Ridge.  This  day  see  a  Rattled  snake,  ye  first 
we  had  seen  in  all  our  journey. 

"  Wednesday,  ye  I3th  of  April,  1748.  Mr.  Fairfax 
got  safe  home  and  I  myself  safe  to  my  Brothers,  which 
concludes  my  Journal."  * 

1 W.  C.  Ford,  The  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  i. 


CHAPTER  IV 
WASHINGTON'S  UNIVERSITY 

THE  world  has  always  seemed  curious  to  know 
how  its  great  men  received  their  learning  and 
training,  how  and  where  they  were  educated,  who 
were  their  teachers  and  trainers,  and  what  moulding 
influences  gathered  about  their  childhood  and  youth 
and  fashioned  them  for  their  fate  to  be.  Perhaps 
the  most  interesting  of  all  the  works  of  Xenophon  is 
the  limpid  narrative  in  which  he  describes  the  birth, 
training,  and  schooling  of  the  great  Cyrus ;  even  the 
fictitious  "  Frenchy  "  biography  of  Telemaque  pos- 
sesses a  charm,  quite  apart  from  its  grace  of  style, 
in  the  attractive  way  in  which  it  represents,  under 
antique  forms  and  transparent  pseudonyms,  the  up- 
bringing of  a  luxurious  prince  surrounded  by  the 
dissipations  of  a  gorgeous  court.  Literary  syba- 
rites linger  with  delight  over  the  educational  pages 
of  Montaigne,  of  Massillon,  and  of  Wilhelm  Mei- 
ster,  and  in  every  biography  and  autobiography  that 
appears,  perhaps  those  pages  are  most  keenly  rel- 
ished which  deal  with  the  school  life  and  home  in- 
fluences of  the  world's  noted  men  and  women.  The 
mother's  knee  antedates  the  school  desk  or  the 
church-pulpit.  The  fascinating  skill  of  Xenophon 
draws  aside  the  curtain,  and  lets  our  eye  rest  upon 

46 


Washington  s   University         47 

a  mighty  Oriental  potentate  as  he  is  taught  the 
elemental  truths  of  life,  to  ride,  to  swim,  to  hurl  the 
javelin,  and  to  tell  the  truth,  the  simplest  duties  of 
everyday  existence,  the  power  of  self-government 
and  of  self-control,  the  duties  to  ourselves  and 
others  :  one  gazes  at  the  picture  and  finds  the  Persian 
system  in  many  ways  admirable.  Then  we  turn  to 
Plutarch  and  find  in  his  marvellous  biographies  the 
Spartan  and  Roman,  the  Athenian  and  Oriental 
chapters  of  educational  experience  graphically  con- 
trasted, and  full  of  instruction  for  the  modern 
reader  interested  in  the  pedagogical  problems  of  the 
ancients.  The  subtle  moralisings  of  Goethe  and 
Montaigne  afford  deep  glimpses  into  the  education 
of  their  authors,  and  invest  each  with  a  kind  of  halo 
which  sharply  distinguishes  the  French  and  German 
systems  from  each  other. 

Washington  was  the  finest  product  of  the  planter 
commonwealth;  his  Oxford  and  Cambridge  were 
the  floods  and  fields,  the  ups  and  downs  of  the  Old 
Virginia  life,  the  experiences  of  the  rough,  prac- 
tical surroundings  in  which  he  found  his  boyhood 
entangled,  the  beguiling  ways  and  free-and-easy 
hospitalities  of  that  stately  old  freeman's  common- 
wealth, which  had  founded  itself  along  the  Chesa- 
peake and  the  James  in  the  golden  days  of  Stuart 
and  Guelph.  The  coming  of  the  cavaliers  had  filled 
this  New  Atlantis,  risen  out  of  the  Western  seas, 
with  a  free  and  noble  population,  largely  made  up 
of  gentle  folk  whose  gentility  had  become  impatient 
at  home,  and  sought  new  avenues  of  relief  abroad. 


48  George  Washington 

A  year  before  Jacques  Cartier,  creeping  out  of  St. 
Malo  in  his  tiny  craft  of  thirty  tons'  burthen,  had 
crossed  the  seas  and  sailed  up  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the 
sites  of  Quebec  and  Montreal,  Virginia  had  pre- 
sented itself  to  the  English  navigators  of  James- 
town as  a  mighty  stairway,  up  whose  five-fold  stair 
of  Tidewater,  Middle,  Piedmont,  Shenandoah,  and 
Appalachian  Virginia,  crept  an  ever-increasing, 
often-defeated,  never-discouraged,  indefatigable  tide 
of  human  beings  as  patient  and  implacable  as  the 
sea  itself,  having  a  choice  eye  for  choice  localities, 
full  of  the  healthy  human  selfishness  that  takes  the 
best  it  can  get — where  all  is  free — with  the  least 
possible  effort,  settling  the  rich  river-valleys  and 
game-haunted  mountain  gorges,  and  making  them- 
selves generally  comfortable  wherever  they  went, 
despite  Pamunkies,  Chickahominies,  Shawnees, 
Mingos,  or  Cherokees  with  which  every  covert  at  the 
time  abounded.  The  few  hundred  immigrants  at 
Old  Point  and  Hampton  Roads  had  expanded  by 
this  time  up  and  down,  all  things  considered,  into 
a  solid  million  of  alert,  keen-eyed,  intelligent  fron- 
tiersmen, whose  "  frontier,"  in  five  generations,  had 
pushed  back  from  the  blue  Atlantic  to  the  Blue 
Ridge,  the  Alleghanies,  and  the  Ohio. 

The  novelty  of  this  life  and  of  these  conditions 
in  Virginia  in  the  eighteenth  century  had  not  yet 
worn  off ;  the  blue  smoke  curling  heavenward  from 
a  thousand  wigwams  showed  still,  in  Washington's 
youth  and  early  manhood,  the  power  and  plenitude 
of  that  slowly  receding  Indian  barbarism  which 


Washington's   University         49 

filled  the  sunset  line  with  thrilling  adventure,  and 
sharpened  men's  eyes  and  ears  and  muscles  to  the 
presence  of  a  numerous  and  dangerous  foe.  Less 
than  a  hundred  miles  from  his  native  Westmoreland, 
in  and  about  which  his  father's  five  thousand  patri- 
monial acres  were  situated,  Washington  received 
much  of  his  training,  particularly  at  Greenway 
Court,  on  the  outskirts  of  a  remote  wilder- 
ness which  lost  itself  westward  in  immeasurable 
distances  of  territory,  untrodden  save  by  the  feet 
of  deer  and  bear  and  Red  Man.  The  daring 
missionary,  the  lonely  Jesuit  voyageur,  impelled 
by  conscience  and  by  zeal  for  the  French  king, 
alone  had  stolen  through  its  measureless  soli- 
tudes, and  down  its  mighty  rivers,  and  over 
its  ocean-like  lakes  from  Ontario  and  the  St.  Law- 
rence to  St.  Louis,  Natchez,  and  New  Orleans,  far 
down  into  tropical  Louisiana.  The  hunter,  the  trap- 
per, the  seekers  after  gold  and  pearls,  the  romantic 
dreamer  in  search  of  the  Fountain  of  Youth,  tra- 
versed these  appalling  wastes,  built  their  huts  on 
river-bank  and  mountain  height,  staked  out  their 
claims,  here  and  there  in  regions  vast  as  the  sea  itself, 
and  lived  and  died  as  pioneers — often  as  martyrs — 
of  the  civilisation  to  come. 

This  earnest,  active  life  of  intense  physical  unrest 
and  energy  was  the  school  in  which  Washington  be- 
came an  apt  and  ready  scholar,  a  student  of  men 
and  of  things,  a  man  of  affairs,  alive  in  every  nerve 
and  muscle,  cautious,  resourceful,  strong  as  a  young 
Hercules  to  endure  sickness  and  privation,  crafty 


50  George  Washington 

as  Odysseus  himself  in  the  exercise  of  a  quick  intel- 
ligence, ripe  for  action,  and  wise  in  counsel  far 
beyond  his  years,  in  many  things  a  veritable  sage 
of  twenty;  having  "small  Latin  and  less  Greek" 
(like  his  brother  Shakspere),  but  possessing  a  pro- 
found, almost  a  marvellous,  knowledge  of  the  world 
around  him,  rising  to  nigh  supreme  command  in  the 
West  almost  in  his  'teens,  and  revealing  in  his  Jour- 
nal to  the  Ohio  (published  by  command  of  the 
Governor,  in  1754),  such  insight,  discretion,  and 
powers  of  command  as  prophesied  for  him  a  brilliant 
future. 

When  his  "  loving  brother  "  Lawrence  fell  ill,  in 
1752,  George  gave  up  the  forest  seclusion  of  the 
lovely  Shenandoah  Valley,  with  all  its  happy  text- 
books of  hill  and  dale  and  teeming  trout-stream,  and 
hurried  back  to  Mount  Vernon  to  accompany  Law- 
rence to  Barbadoes  and  the  Bahamas,  whither  deli- 
cate lungs  called  him.  But  the  radiant  Caribbean 
proved  only  a  Calypso's  Isle  whose  gorgeous  air  had 
no  healing  in  it.  Washington  himself  was  attacked 
by  small-pox  after  accepting  a  "  conscience  "  invita- 
tion to  dinner  at  a  house  where  the  scourge  (about 
to  be  greatly  alleviated  by  Jenner's  famous  dis- 
covery) was  prevalent. 

Soon  after  this,  Lawrence  died,  leaving  his  estates 
first  to  his  little  daughter  and  then  to  his  brother 
George,  should  the  daughter  die  without  issue. 

She  died  almost  immediately  after  her  father,  and 
thus  to  George,  the  youngest  executor  and  special 
favourite  of  Lawrence,  fell  the  noble  acres  of  Mount 


Washing-ton's  University         51 

Vernon  (called  also  Epsewasson  or  Hunting 
Lodge). 

And  now  begins  that  intense  and  strenuous  "  cur- 
riculum "  of  Washington's  education,  which  started 
with  his  forest  matriculation  as  surveyor  to  Lord 
Fairfax  in  1747-8,  and  continued  through  the  storm 
and  stress  of  the  French  and  Indian  Wars  until  his 
marriage  in  1759,  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven,  to 
Martha  Custis. 

The  graphic  metaphor  of  the  mediaevalist  likened 
such  an  education  to  the  course  of  the  chariot,  as  it 
wound  its  way  to  the  goal  over  the  mazy  spaces  of 
the  Greek  stadium  or  the  Roman  amphitheatre, 
where  racers  and  athletes  fixed  their  burning  eyes 
on  contending  charioteers,  and  where  the  winners 
of  the  goal — the  diploma  of  "  graduation  "  in  this 
gradus  ad  Parnassum — received  universal  acclaim 
from  the  bystanders. 

The  bystanders  in  Washington's  case  were  his 
neighbours,  the  planters  of  the  stalwart  young  com- 
monwealth, the  House  of  Burgesses,  and  the  Colony 
of  Virginia  itself,  all  of  whom,  it  seems,  had  eagerly 
watched  the  remarkable  career  of  Mary  Ball's  eldest 
son,  and  felt  that  within  it  lay  notable  developments. 
The  long-legged,  lank,  hollow-chested,  awkward 
Wakefield  boy  had  grown  into  a  superb  specimen  of 
young  Virginian  manhood,  "  straight  as  an  Indian 
arrow,"  wrote  his  adopted  grandson,  dignified,  com- 
manding-looking, every  inch  a  man  and  a  gentle- 
man, powerful  in  physique,  gracious  though  slightly 
cold  in  manner,  reticent  rather  than  rushing  in 


52  George  Washing-ton 

speech,  infinitely  cumulative  of  details,  almost  a 
martinet  in  matters  of  decorum,  pedantically 
microscopic  in  his  attention  to  minutiae,  yet  with 
an  eye  as  keen  as  an  Indian's  for  distant  possibilities 
and  opportunities  to  benefit  King,  crown,  and 
colony. 

George  Washington  was  at  this  time  a  "  King 
George's  man,"  devotedly  loyal,  supremely  subser- 
vient to  the  wishes  of  his  royal  master  as  reflected 
in  the  orders  of  Council  and  the  direction  of  the 
Governor,  a  British  subject  who  had  never  yet 
dreamt  of  severance  from  his  sovereign,  a  Virginian 
Englishman,  in  whose  loyal  arteries  swept  a  tide  of 
English  blood  as  hot  for  King  and  Parliament  as 
ever  coursed  in  the  bodies  of  Pitt  and  Fox,  Chatham 
and  Burke,  soon  to  be  his  face-to-face  "  contem- 
poraries " — in  debate  at  least — on  the  banks  of  the 
Thames. 

And  it  is  a  singular  fact  that  the  implacable  foes 
of  this  "  undergraduate  "  time  were  not  the  English 
who  lay,  as  it  were,  still  submerged  beneath  the 
Eastern  horizon,  but — the  French,  in  a  few  short 
years  to  become  his  friends,  admirers,  almost  wor- 
shippers. Says  John  Fiske : 

"  Hitherto  the  struggle  with  the  House  of  Bourbon 
had  been  confined  to  Canada,  at  one  end  of  the  line, 
and  Carolina  at  the  other,  while  the  centre  had  not 
been  directly  implicated.  In  the  first  American  Con- 
gress, convened  by  Jacob  Leisler  at  New  York,  in 
1690,  for  the  purpose  of  concerting  measures  of  de- 
fence against  the  common  enemy,  Virginia  (as  we 


Washington's   University         53 

have  seen)  took  no  part.  The  seat  of  war  was  then 
remote,  and  her  strength,  exerted  at  such  a  distance, 
would  have  been  of  little  avail.  But  in  the  sixty  years 
since  1690,  the  white  population  of  Virginia  had  in- 
creased fourfold;  and  her  wealth  had  increased  still 
more.  Looking  down  the  Monongahela  River  to  the 
point  where  its  union  with  the  Alleghany  makes  the 
Ohio,  she  beheld  there  the  gateway  to  the  Great  West, 
and  felt  a  yearning  to  possess  it;  for  the  westward 
movement  was  giving  rise  to  speculations  in  land,  and 
a  company  was  forming  for  the  exploration  and  settle- 
ment of  all  that  Ohio  country.  But  French  eyes  were 
not  blind  to  the  situation,  and  it  was  their  king's  pawn, 
not  the  English,  that  opened  the  game  on  the  mighty 
chessboard.  French  troops  from  Canada  crossed  Lake 
Erie,  and  built  their  first  fort  where  the  city  of  Erie 
now  stands.  Then  they  pushed  forward  down  the 
wooded  valley  of  the  Alleghany,  and  built  a  second 
fortress  and  a  third.  Another  stride  would  bring  them 
to  the  gateway.  Something  must  be  done  at  once. 

"  At  such  a  crisis,  Governor  Dinwiddie  had  need  of 
the  ablest  man  Virginia  could  afford  to  undertake  a 
journey  of  unwonted  difficulty  through  the  wilderness, 
to  negotiate  with  Indian  tribes,  and  to  warn  the  ad- 
vancing Frenchmen  to  trespass  no  further  upon  Eng- 
lish territory.  As  the  best  person  to  entrust  with  this 
arduous  enterprise,  the  shrewd  old  Scotchman  selected 
a  lad  of  one-and-twenty,  Lord  Fairfax's  surveyor, 
George  Washington.  History  does  not  record  a  more 
extraordinary  choice,  nor  one  more  completely  jus- 
tified." * 

Virginia  needed,  indeed,  the  presence  of  this  ex- 
1  Fiske,  Old  Virginia  and  Her  Neighbours,  vol.  ii,  p.  378. 


54  George  Washington 

traordinary  young  man  just  at  the  time  and  place 
at  which  the  shrewd  "  merchant  governor  "  of  the 
Colony,  Dinwiddie,  a  canny  and  observant  Scot, 
summoned  him.  He  was  one  of  those  "  climate- 
struck  "  Virginians  who,  though  foreign-born,  fell 
under  the  benign  influence  of  the  region  and  re- 
mained in  the  country  as  a  "  merchant  adventurer," 
long  after  he  had  ceased  to  represent  his  Majesty  as 
chief  magistrate  of  the  commonwealth.  His  keen 
Scotch  eyes  had  watched  the  rise  and  progress  of 
this  young  Virginia  cavalier,  whom  in  a  letter  to 
Hamilton,  Governor  of  Pennsylvania,  he  described 
as  "  a  person  of  distinction,"  and  had  found  in  him 
such  premonitions  of  strength  and  efficiency  as  to 
compel  him,  in  a  way,  to  choose  Washington  rather 
than  another  from  the  crowd  of  distinguished  gentle- 
men, old  as  well  as  young,  who  might  have  served 
the  King  at  this  crisis.  One  catches  glimpses  of  the 
looming  form  of  the  nascent  diplomat  and  general, 
even  then,  when  he  had  hardly  entered  upon  the 
enjoyment  of  his  Mount  Vernon  estates,  and  the  de- 
lightful social  life  of  the  period,  and  when  the 
charms  of  home  life,  the  beauty  of  his  plantations, 
the  spell  of  horse  and  hound  and  angler's  rod  and 
the  coquetry  of  winsome  women  would  to  most 
youths  of  one-and-twenty  have  proved  most  irre- 
sistible. The  education  of  the  forest,  of  the  chain 
and  theodolite,  of  the  spacious  geometries  of  heaven 
and  earth  in  which  his  youth  had  been  passed,  the 
self-made,  self-taught  qualities  of  his  manly  and 
self-dependent  nature,  kindling  with  the  unquenched 


Washington's  University          55 

ambition  to  serve  his  colony  and  people,  urged  him 
to  throw  aside  the  enticing  appeals  of  self-indulgent 
ease,  and  to  present  himself  to  the  Governor  as  a 
willing  instrument  in  endeavouring  to  make  the  dif- 
ficulties of  the  colony  less  insurmountable  and  less 
intolerable.  He  was,  of  all  the  Virginians  of  his 
day,  the  one  best  fitted  for  Dinwiddie's  delicate  and 
dangerous  mission,  the  one  best  combining  a  pro- 
found knowledge  of  Indian  craft  and  cunning  with 
surest  reliance  upon  himself,  prudence,  foresight, 
Stoic  powers  of  endurance,  and  a  boundless  pride 
and  conscientiousness  that  would  drive  him  to  the 
uttermost,  and  make  him  bate  no  jot  or  tittle  of 
irksome  detail  to  make  the  embassy  a  complete  suc- 
cess. He  set  out  on  his  task  with  an  energy  that 
bordered  on  fury,  in  a  kind  of  Berserker  rage,  pos- 
sessed with  an  impelling  desire  to  push  into  the  wil- 
derness, carry  through  his  negotiations,  and  return 
to  quaint  old  Williamsburg,  on  the  Middle  Planta- 
tion, with  full  information  of  the  machinations  of 
the  French  in  the  far  Ohio  Valley. 

For  here  it  was  that  the  whole  trouble  hinged. 
The  French  had  come  flowing  down  from  the 
North  in  a  mighty  tide  of  mission-work  and  con- 
quest, which  threatened  to  swallow  up  the  English 
frontier,  unsettle  boundaries,  quicken  and  deepen 
Indian  hostility,  and  make  the  border-lands,  west- 
ward of  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  and  the 
Carolinas,  unhabitable  by  men  of  Anglo-Saxon 
breed,  and  to  kindle  the  flames  of  a  perpetual  feud. 

Washington's  intimate  knowledge  of  Indian  ways 


56  George  Washington 

and  wiles,  his  skill  in  woodcraft,  his  known  courage 
and  dauntless  spirit,  pointed  him  out  as  the  one  man 
born  to  plunge  into  the  waste  and  bring  thence  to 
his  people  definite  intelligence  of  the  purpose  of  the 
French,  and  definite  suggestions  of  what  was  now 
best  to  be  done  to  foil  them.  No  Laodicean  was  he, 
with  lukewarm  heart  and  limping  intelligence,  quak- 
ing in  his  shoes  over  imaginary  difficulties,  or 
quibbling  over  details  of  administration  or  rank; 
but  straightforward,  direct,  absolutely  devoid  of  self- 
ishness or  vanity  from  the  very  start,  a  whole-souled 
Virginia  gentleman  and  soldier,  intent  on  duty  per- 
fectly performed,  and  nothing  else,  neither  expecting 
nor  caring  for  any  one's  commendation  except  Din- 
widdie's  and  that  of  his  own  conscience. 
Hear  his  own  account  of  the  mission : 

"  ADVERTISEMENT 

"As  it  was  thought  advisable  by  his  Honour  the 
Governor  to  have  the  following  Account  of  my  Pro- 
ceedings to  and  from  the  FRENCH  on  OHIO,  com- 
mitted to  Print  I  think  I  can  do  no  less  than  apologise, 
in  some  Measure,  for  the  numberless  Imperfections 
of  it. 

"  There  intervened  but  one  Day  between  my  Arrival 
in  Williamsburg,  and  the  Time  for  the  Council's  Meet- 
ing, for  me  to  prepare  and  transcribe,  from  the  rough 
Minutes  I  had  taken  in  my  Travels,  this  Journal ;  the 
writing  of  which  only  was  sufficient  to  employ  me 
closely  the  whole  Time,  consequently  admitted  of  no 
leisure  to  consult  of  a  new  and  proper  Form  of  the 
old:  Neither  was  I  apprised,  nor  did  in  the  least  con- 


Washington's   University         57 

ceive,  when  I  wrote  this  for  his  Honour's  Perusal, 
that  it  ever  would  be  published,  or  even  have  more 
than  a  cursory  Reading;  till  I  was  informed,  at  the 
Meeting  of  the  present  General  Assembly,  that  it  was 
already  in  the  Press. 

"  There  is  nothing  can  recommend  it  to  the  Public, 
but  this.  Those  Things  which  came  under  the  Notice 
of  my  own  Observation,  I  have  been  explicit  and  just 
in  a  Recital  of: — Those  which  I  have  gathered  from 
Report,  I  have  been  particularly  cautious  not  to  aug- 
ment, but  collected  the  Opinions  of  the  several  Intel- 
ligencers, and  selected  from  the  whole,  the  most  prob- 
able and  consistent  Account. 

"  G.  WASHINGTON." 


"Wednesday,  October  31,  1753. 

"  I  was  commissioned  and  appointed  by  the  Hon- 
ourable Robert  Dinwiddie,  Esq.,  Governor,  etc.,  of 
Virginia,  to  visit  and  deliver  a  letter  to  the  Command- 
ant of  the  French  forces  on  the  Ohio,  and  set  out  on 
the  intended  Journey  the  same  day :  The  next,  I  arrived 
at  Fredericksburg,  and  engaged  Mr.  Jacob  Vanbraam, 
to  be  my  French  interpreter ;  and  proceeded  with  him 
to  Alexandria,  where  we  provided  Necessaries.  From 
thence  we  went  to  Winchester,  and  got  Baggage, 
Horses,  etc. ;  and  from  thence  we  pursued  the  new 
Road  to  Wills-Creek,  where  we  arrived  the  I4th  of 
November. 

"  Here  I  engaged  Mr.  Gist  to  pilot  us  out,  and  also 
hired  four  others  as  Servitors,  Barnaby  Currin  and 
John  Mac-Quire,  Indian  Traders,  Henry  Steward, 
and  William  Jenkins;  and  in  company  with  those  per- 
sons, left  the  Inhabitants  the  Day  following. 


58  George  Washington 

"  The  excessive  Rains  and  vast  Quantity  of  Snow 
which  had  fallen,  prevented  our  reaching  Mr.  Frasier's 
an  Indian  Trader,  at  the  Mouth  of  Turtle  Creek,  on 
Monongahela  [River],  till  Thursday,  the  22d.  We 
were  informed  here,  that  Expresses  had  been  sent  a 
few  Days  before  to  the  Traders  down  the  River,  to 
acquaint  them  with  the  French  General's  death,  and 
the  Return  of  the  major  Part  of  the  French  Army  into 
Winter  Quarters. 

"  The  Waters  were  quite  impassable,  without  swim- 
ming our  Horses ;  which  obliged  us  to  get  the  Loan  of 
a  Canoe  from  Frazier,  and  to  send  Barnaby  Currin 
and  Henry  Steward  down  the  Monongahela,  with  our 
Baggage,  to  meet  us  at  the  Forks  of  Ohio,  about  10 
miles,  there  to  cross  the  Aligany." 

He  winds  up  this  remarkable  document,  which 
fills  some  twenty-five  octavo  pages,  with  the  follow- 
ing expressions : 

"  I  hope  what  has  been  said  will  be  sufficient  to 
make  your  Honour  satisfied  with  my  Conduct;  for 
that  was  my  Aim  in  undertaking  the  Journey,  and 
chief  Study  throughout  the  prosecution  of  it."  * 

This  Journal,  filled  as  it  is  with  homely  yet 
minute  and  important  facts,  might  well  be  called 
Washington's  "  graduation  essay,"  a  bit  "  of  orig- 
inal search  and  research  "  in  the  wilderness,  of  the 
highest  significance  to  the  interest  of  the  common- 
wealth, based  on  the  severest  personal  investigation. 
This  study  of  aboriginal  conditions  and  of  French 
diplomacy  lasted  two  months  and  a  half,  and  con- 

1  Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  i,  p.  39. 


Washington's   University         59 

stitutes  a  striking  story  of  Darkest  America  in  the 
time  just  before  the  Revolution,  when  all  the  forces 
and  energies  on  the  continent  were  about  to  gather 
for  the  supreme  struggle  between  Guelph  and  Bour- 
bon, between  George  II  and  Louis  XV,  between 
fleur-de-lis  and  rose,  as  they  seemed  to  spring  spon- 
taneously from  the  virgin  soil  of  the  West,  lying  be- 
fore them  in  immemorial  calm. 

The  successive  grades  of  Washington's  prelimi- 
nary education  were  thus  being  rapidly  surmounted 
in  the  great  University  of  the  Wilderness,  whose 
countless  unknown  creatures  yielded  up  their  knowl- 
edge to  him,  and  spoke  to,  and  taught  him  in  tongues 
infinitely  more  efficient  than  those  of  the  mere 
scholastic  kind.  Washington  was  always,  in  later 
years,  regretting  his  ignorance  of  French,  of  the 
cultured  training  which  his  elder  brothers  Lawrence 
and  Augustine  had  received  at  Appleby  School  in 
England,  of  the  thousand  and  one  polite  accomplish- 
ments which  the  Virginians  who  matriculated  in 
the  Old  World  possessed  in  ample  degree;  but  he 
need  not  have  been  ashamed  of  the  real  knowledge 
which  he  really  and  truly  possessed, — not  the  knowl- 
edge which  Master  Hobby,  the  sexton  convict,  and 
Master  Williams,  the  Wakefield  schoolmaster,  and 
the  ex- Jesuit  Marye  (turned  Huguenot),  had  im- 
parted :  the  knowledge  possessed  by  the  young 
major  and  lieutenant-colonel  now  to  be,  was  of  a 
far  finer  character :  he  who  knows  not  men  is  igno- 
rant of  the  first  principles  of  knowledge.  It  was 
possession  of  this  masterful  knowledge  that  made 


60  George  Washington 

the  Virginia  officer,  from  the  first,  master  of  the 
Convention,  master  of  Congress,  master  of  the  com- 
bined armies  of  the  United  Republic,  and  master  at 
last,  and  for  as  long  as  he  would,  of  the  supreme 
governmental  forces  of  the  nation. 

Washington's  own  explanation  of  his  mission  to 
the  Indians  and  their  "  Half  King  "  may  be  gath- 
ered from  his  address  to  them : 

"  Brothers,  I  have  called  you  together  in  Council  by 
order  of  your  Brother,  the  Governor  of  Virginia,  to 
acquaint  you,  that  I  am  sent,  with  all  possible  Dispatch, 
to  visit,  and  deliver  a  Letter  to  the  French  Command- 
ant, of  very  great  Importance  to  your  Brothers,  the 
English;  and  I  dare  say,  to  you,  their  Friends  and 
allies. 

"  I  was  desired,  Brothers,  by  your  Brother  the  Gov- 
ernor, to  call  upon  you,  the  Sachems  of  the  Nations, 
to  inform  you  of  it,  and  to  ask  your  Advice  and  As- 
sistance to  proceed  the  nearest  and  best  Road  to  the 
French.  You  see,  Brothers,  I  have  gotten  thus  far 
on  my  Journey. 

"  His  Honour  likewise  desired  me  to  apply  to  you 
for  some  of  your  young  Men,  to  conduct  and  provide 
Provisions  for  us  on  our  Way ;  and  be  a  safeguard 
against  those  French  Indians  who  have  taken  up  the 
hatchet  against  us.  I  have  spoken  this  particularly  to 
you  Brothers,  because  his  Honour  our  Governor  treats 
you  as  good  Friends  and  Allies;  and  holds  you  in 
great  Esteem.  To  confirm  what  I  have  said,  I  give 
you  this  String  of  Wampum."  1 

All  through  the  Journal  and  its  matter-of-fact  en- 
1  Ford's  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  i,  p.  19. 


Washington's   University         61 

tries,  the  reader  catches  vivid  foreshadowings  of  the 
coming  man,  who  was  swiftly  developing  out  of  the 
dutiful  son  and  the  sturdy  youth  into  a  character 
tenacious  of  purpose,  rugged  in  its  relations  with 
antagonistic  forces,  fond  of  battling  with  difficulties 
that  seemed  to  others  surpassing  their  strength,  and 
Lacedemonian  in  its  firmness  and  inflexibility. 
Over  the  frozen  wilderness  sped  these  young  feet, 
unconscious  of  suffering,  unwearied  in  the  pursuit  of 
their  hopeful  mission,  through  miry  swamps,  over 
unbeaten  tracks  and  trackless  mountains,  "  shod 
with  the  preparation  of  the  gospel  of  peace  "  indeed, 
but  ready  at  a  moment's  notice  to  carry  their  owner 
into  the  thick  of  some  savage  fight,  or  into  the 
dreaded  shades  where  at  any  moment  the  flash  of  the 
tomahawk,  the  whizz  of  the  deadly  bone-arrow,  or 
the  crack  of  the  clumsy  flint-lock  would  startle  the 
everlasting  silence  and  make  it  articulate  with  hid- 
eous noises.  For  scores  and  scores  of  leagues  the 
young  traveller  and  his  interpreters  fought  their 
way  through  bush  and  bramble,  through  wire-grass 
and  rope-like  vines,  through  harsh  autumnal  woods, 
crisp  and  sere  in  the  clutch  of  frost,  through  copses 
where  the  dogwood  glimmered  milkwhite  in  May, 
now  desolate  and  forlorn,  and  where  the  redbud  and 
Indian  pink  burned  like  flame  in  springtime — now 
frozen  to  a  crisp  in  the  icy  air  of  November;  only 
stopping  for  meat  and  drink  and  rest;  up  with  the 
birds,  off  with  the  startled  deer,  ceaselessly  journey- 
ing till  they  reached  the  vicinity  of  the  French  Fort 
Duquesne,  where  now  the  great  city  of  Pittsburg 


62  George  Washington 

stands,  "  interviewed  "  the  French  commandant  and 
brought  from  him  a  specious  message  informing 
Dinwiddie  of  the  French  claims  and  aspirations. 

On  this  expedition,  Washington  reveals  himself 
as  the  pioneer  diplomat  of  his  time,  conducting 
thorny  negotiations  in  languages  which  he  did  not 
understand,  and  yet  managing  to  explain  himself  to, 
and  to  understand,  the  forest  Talleyrands  and  Met- 
ternichs  by  whom  he  was  beset.  The  guile  of  the 
Indian  nature  was  as  intelligible  to  him  as  its  dis- 
trust and  superstition.  Since  1656,  the  Washington 
clan  had  been  studying  Indian  methods,  Indian  war- 
fare, Indian  customs  and  habits  on  the  Northern 
Neck,  and  back  in  the  picturesque  Shenandoah  wil- 
derness where  now  and  in  neighbouring  Pennsyl- 
vania nearly  five  hundred  thousand  Scotch-Irish 
had  arrived,  fresh  from  Irish  Ulster ;  and  this  study, 
hereditary  and  personal,  had  not  been  lost  on  the 
impressionable  soldier.  It  was  in  just  such  a  school 
that  the  generals  of  the  Civil  War  graduated — Lee 
and  Grant  and  Jackson,  Custer  and  Fitzhugh  Lee, 
and,  earlier,  the  soldier  Presidents,  Jackson  and 
Taylor.  American  military  history  abounds  in  self- 
educated  soldiers  who,  like  Washington,  got  their 
training  on  the  plains,  in  the  backwoods,  at  the  forks 
of  rushing  rivers  where  rude  forts  were  built,  and  in 
the  flying  wigwam  where  the  fugitive  democracy  of 
the  woods  held  perennial  council. 

The  heroic  annals  of  New  England  history  are 
no  less  full  of  these  striking  figures  than  the  annals 


Washington's   University         63 

of  those  softer  climes  which  developed  the  Johns- 
ton, Marion,  and  Sumter. 

The  painstaking  youth,  who  had  bent  painfully 
over  his  legal  forms  and  documents,  bills  of  sale, 
forms  for  wills,  surveyor's  diagrams  and  mathemat- 
ical calculations,  copying  laboriously  every  mis- 
spelt word  or  misplaced  capital,  had  not  gone 
through  that  trial  of  patience,  unaffected  or  inat- 
tentive. The  patience,  skill,  practical  knowledge, 
and  useful  information  thus  acquired  in  boyhood, 
now  widened  out  into  that  deeper  and  finer  knowl- 
edge which  was  to  prove  invaluable  to  his  country- 
men. 

Hurrying  back  to  Williamsburg,  where  the 
burgesses  were  in  session,  he  hastily  wrote  out  his 
journal  in  twenty-four  hours,  and  informed  the  Gov- 
ernor of  the  plans  and  projects  of  the  French  at  Fort 
Le  Boeuf. 


CHAPTER  V 

PROLOGUE  TO  A  FOREST  TRAGEDY 

(f  \l\  Y  mclmations>"  wrote  the  young  Washing- 
JVl  ton  to  Colonel  William  Fitzhugh,  "are 
strongly  bent  to  arms  " ;  and,  in  a  letter  to  Dinwid- 
die,  of  about  the  same  date,  remarks :  "  I  have  a  con- 
stitution hardy  enough  to  encounter  and  undergo  the 
most  severe  trials,  and  I  flatter  myself,  resolution 
to  face  what  any  man  durst,  as  shall  be  proved  when 
it  comes  to  the  test." 

The  test  was  close  at  hand. 

The  publication  of  Washington's  Journal,  now 
an  exceedingly  rare  book,  of  almost  priceless  value, 
and  its  perusal  by  the  governors  of  the  neighbouring 
provinces,  roused  these  sleepy  commonwealths  to  the 
danger  of  a  situation  which  threatened  every  mo- 
ment to  becomfe  more  critical.  The  aggressions  of 
the  French,  their  advance  down  into  the  Ohio  Val- 
ley— La  Belle  Riviere  as  they  called  it — had  to  be 
stopped.  How  could  Virginia  do  it?  Washington 
had  described  an  admirable  site  for  a  fort,  at  the 
forks  where  the  Monongahela  and  the  Alleghany 
rush  together  to  form  the  Ohio,  in  western  Pennsyl- 
vania. A  fort  built  here,  he  recommended,  would 
constitute  the  very  gateway  of  the  West,  the  key  to 
the  situation,  commanding  and  unlocking  the  vast 

64 


regions  that  no  foot  had  yet  trodden,  except  maybe 
that  of  the  Jesuit,  fur-trader,  or  Indian  of  the  Miami 
or  the  Scioto.  The  French  already  held  the  other 
gateways  to  this  Promised  Land,  at  Fort  Niagara,  in 
western  New  York,  and  at  Detroit  and  Green  Bay; 
it  was  their  evident  intention  to  make  the  chain  of 
exclusion  complete,  by  establishing  themselves  at 
Fort  Le  Boeuf,  or  some  stronghold  not  inferior  in 
strength,  that  would  shut  the  English  out  of  this 
favoured  territory,  and  confine  them  for  ever  to  the 
ocean  side  of  the  continent,  east  of  the  Alleghanies. 

Governor  Dinwiddie  was  quick  to  grasp  the  wis- 
dom of  Washington's  plan,  and  commissioned  the 
immediate  raising  and  equipment  of  two  companies, 
of  one  hundred  men  each,  one  of  which  he  was 
charged  to  command,  while  the  other  was  entrusted 
to  his  lieutenant,  William  Trent  (Benjamin  Frank- 
lin's trading  partner  in  west  Pennsylvania).  Trent 
was  ordered  to  occupy  and  fortify  the  forks  of  the 
two  rivers  where  Pittsburg  now  stands,  and  make 
the  place  impregnable  against  the  roving  bands  of 
French,  Canadians,  and  Indians,  who  had  begun  to 
infest  the  region,  burying,  wherever  they  went, 
leaden  plates  inscribed  with  the  name  and  claims  of 
his  Most  Christian  Majesty,  Louis  XV,  King  of 
France. 

War  had  not  yet  openly  broken  out  between  the 
two  great  powers,  for  the  ink  of  the  signatories  to 
the  Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  was  scarcely  dry  on 
the  vellums;  but  a  feeling  of  intense  suspicion  and 
irritability  began  to  show  itself,  and,  in  the  absence 


66  George  Washington 

of  explicit  information  in  these  distant  parts,  no 
man  knew  at  any  given  time  what  had  happened 
across  the  ocean,  or  how  lion  and  lily  stood  to  each 
other.  A  universal  covetousness  possessed  men's 
minds ;  greed  of  land,  greed  of  gold,  greed  of  every- 
thing within  sight,  held  men's  souls  in  its  grip  of 
steel;  the  boundless  "  desire  of  the  eyes  "  and  "  pride 
of  life  "  cast  its  spell  over  the  eighteenth  century  and 
bewitched  its  wits. 

Treaties  crumbled  at  a  touch,  friable  as  inciner- 
ated paper;  obligations  were  flung  overboard  like 
old  shoes,  worn-out  and  worthless;  the  smile  of  the 
diplomat  supplanted  the  oath  of  the  sovereign;  and 
the  cabinets  of  kings  became  subterranean  labora- 
tories of  intrigue,  where  the  sunlight  never  pene-. 
trated.  The  Watteau-ised  civilisation  of  France, 
snickering  and  sneering  behind  its  fans,  had  lost  all 
vitality,  and  assumed  the  thousand  affectations  that 
smile  at  us  out  of  the  powder  and  paint  and  gal- 
lantries of  the  Pompadours,  the  sentimentalities  of 
Rousseau,  and  a  little  later,  the  Sorrows  of  Werther. 
England  was  in  the  throes  of  that  tedious  Georgian 
age  which  almost  drove  men  mad  with  its  dulness, 
and  ultimately  provoked  the  cynic  smile  of  Walpole 
and  Hogarth.  Pope  had  ceased  to  lash  the  dunces 
with  his  poetic  scourge,  while  in  Gray's  soul  were 
just  beginning  to  gather — symbolically  enough — the 
exquisite  strains  of  his  "  Elegy  " — the  tired,  blase, 
worn-out,  senile  courts  of  Europe,  disgusted  with 
themselves  and  their  Thirty  Years'  War  over  mat- 
ters no  moie  important  than  "  The  Rape  of  a  Lock," 


Prologue  to  a  Forest  Tragedy    67 

seemed  to  look  wistfully  over  the  Atlantic  for  relief, 
for  a  new  "  sensation,"  for  something  to  shake  them 
out  of  their  stupor;  and  here,  in  this  fresh,  wild, 
unconventional,  undiplomatic  country,  they  found  it, 
in  a  little  while,  in  full  measure. 

The  formation  of  the  Ohio  Company,  for  the 
opening  and  exploitation  of  the  regions  between  the 
Lakes  and  the  Mississippi,  was  a  pivotal  point  in 
the  diplomacy  of  the  West.  A  London  charter 
granted  the  company  five  hundred  thousand  acres 
of  land  and  immense  immunities  and  privileges  of 
various  sorts,  on  condition  that  it  would,  within  a 
certain  period,  settle  one  hundred  immigrant  fam- 
ilies within  the  region  indicated,  and  thus  fix  the 
relations  of  the  territory  to  Great  Britain.  This 
was,  indeed,  the  incipiency  of  the  "  North- West 
Territory "  claim,  and  was  fraught  with  mighty 
consequences.  If  the  French  got  there  first  and  af- 
fixed their  leaden  plates,  so  to  speak,  to  the  face  of 
this  territory,  warning  others  away  as  diplomatic  or 
aggressive  trespassers,  this  vast  and  opulent  region 
would,  treaty  or  no  treaty,  fall  into  the  hands  of  the 
powerful  family  whose  alliance  covered  all  France, 
Spain,  Southern  Italy,  Mexico,  and  South  America. 
Though  separated  three  thousand  miles  by  the  sinu- 
ous zigzag  of  river,  lake,  and  mountain,  Canada  and 
Louisiana,  the  head  and  the  heel  of  Latin  posses- 
sions in  America,  would  soon  be  joined,  and  the  thin 
and  scattered  chain  of  settlements,  which  connected 
them,  would  rivet  themselves  together  in  links  that 
could  not  be  broken,  and  a  Chinese  Wall  of  exclu- 


68  George  Washington 

sion  be  built  up  to  dyke  the  inundation  of  English 
immigration,  irresistibly  flowing  down  the  Alle- 
ghany  slopes.  Lawrence  and  Augustine  Washing- 
ton, brothers  of  George,  were  deeply  interested  in 
the  Ohio  Company;  and  here  perhaps  we  catch  a 
selfish  motive — family  interest — behind  the  glow  of 
mere  military  ardour,  actuating  this  young  officer 
in  his  almost  exuberant  ambition  to  do  and  to  dare, 
at  this  critical  moment,  for  his  native  State.  He 
makes  curious  entries  in  his  day-book  as  he  succes- 
sively climbs  the  grades  of  captain,  major,  lieu- 
tenant-colonel, and  colonel,  indirectly  showing  that 
it  could  not  have  been  the  pay  that  attracted  him  to 
this  service :  as  captain  in  1 754,  8  shillings  per  day ; 
as  major  till  March  20,  1754,  10  shillings  per  day; 
as  lieutenant-colonel  to  June  i,  1754,  12  shillings, 
6  pence;  as  colonel  to  September  i,  1754,  15  shil- 
lings per  day;  and,  in  1755,  as  colonel  of  the 
Virginia  regiment,  30  shillings  a  day. 

These  rapid  promotions  show  incidentally,  too,  the 
worth  and  value  of  his  services.  In  a  year,  he  ad- 
vanced through  the  entire  gamut  of  subaltern  posi- 
tions, and  when  Braddock  arrived  in  February, 
I755>  he  would  have  been  second  only  to  the  com- 
manding general,  had  not  his  self-respect  and 
natural  pride  caused  him  to  resign  his  position,  on 
an  intimation  from  the  Governor  that  a  new  Vir- 
ginia regiment  of  10  companies,  with  100  men  each, 
was  to  be  formed,  no  one  captain  of  which  should 
out-rank  another. 


FACSIMILES  OF  WASHINGTON'S  AUTOGRAPHS. 


Prologue  to  a  Forest  Tragedy    69 

Washington's  instructions  from  Dinwiddie  read 
as  follows : 

"  Having  all  things  in  readiness,  you  are  to  use  all 
expedition  in  proceeding  to  the  Fork  of  the  Ohio  with 
the  men  under  command,  and  there  you  are  to  finish 
and  complete  in  the  best  manner  and  as  soon  as  you 
possibly  can,  the  Fort  which  I  expect  is  there  already 
begun  by  the  Ohio  Company.  You  are  to  act  on  the 
defensive,  but  in  case  any  attempts  are  made  to  ob- 
struct the  works  or  interrupt  our  settlements  by  any 
persons  whatsoever,  you  are  to  restrain  all  such  of- 
fenders and  in  case  of  resistance  to  make  prisoners  of, 
or  kill  and  destroy  them." 

Washington,  however,  was  not  put  in  supreme 
command  of  even  this  little  band  of  200  or  300 
Spartans,  whose  Leonidas  was  Colonel  Joshua  Fry, 
an  Oxford  graduate  described  by  Dinwiddie  as 
"  a  man  of  good  sense  and  one  of  our  best  mathe- 
maticians," a  man  who  had  been  associated  with 
Peter  Jefferson,  father  of  the  President,  in  the 
preparation  of  an  esteemed  map  of  Virginia,  and 
who  became,  in  1754,  colonel  of  the  Virginia  regi- 
ment. Washington  was  second  in  command. 

The  expedition  failed ;  Colonel  Fry  died  at  Win- 
chester in  May,  1754;  Trent's  command  was  sur- 
rounded and  captured  by  Contrecceur,  the  French 
commander,  at  the  Forks  (then  called  Duquesne,  in 
honour  of  the  Marquis  Duquesne,  Governor-General 
of  Canada).  The  supreme  command  devolved  upon 
the  young  Virginian,  now  twenty-two  years  old. 

The  frightful  difficulties  of  the  situation — wan- 


yo  George  Washington 

dering  around  the  woods  almost  without  food  and 
ammunition,  through  pathless  forests,  over  track- 
less mountains,  across  rivers  difficult  to  ford,  hew- 
ing roads  through  the  living  trees,  thick  as  an  em- 
battled host  on  every  side,  the  air  filled  with  vague 
rumours  of  swarms  of  French  and  Indians,  the  ab- 
sence of  authentic  news  of  any  kind  in  the  dense, 
dumb,  endless  woods,  about  which  both  forces 
floundered  as  about  some  Hyrcanian  Bog  or  Slough 
of  Despond :  these  difficulties  may  be  best  gathered 
from  Washington's  and  Dinwiddie's  own  words: 

"  I  set  out  with  forty  men  before  ten,"  reports  Wash- 
ington, "  and  [it]  was  from  that  time  till  near  sunrise 
before  we  reached  the  Indians'  camp,  having  marched 
in  [a]  small  path,  through  a  heavy  rain,  and  night  as 
dark  as  it  is  possible  to  conceive.  We  were  frequently 
tumbling  one  over  another,  and  often  so  lost,  that 
fifteen  or  twenty  minutes'  search  would  not  find  the 
path  again. 

"When  we  came  to  the  Half-King,  I  counselled 
with  him,  and  got  his  assent  to  go  hand-in-hand  and 
strike  the  French.  Accordingly,  himself,  Monacatoo- 
cha,  and  a  few  other  Indians  set  out  with  us  ;  and  when 
we  came  to  the  place  where  the  tracks  were,  the  Half- 
King  sent  two  Indians  to  follow  their  tracks,  and  dis- 
cover their  lodgement,  which  they  did  about  half  a 
mile  from  the  road,  in  a  very  obscure  place  surrounded 
with  rocks.  I,  thereupon,  in  conjunction  with  the  Half- 
King  and  Monacatoocha,  formed  a  disposition  to  at- 
tack them  on  all  sides,  which  we  accordingly  did,  and, 
after  an  engagement  of  about  fifteen  minutes,  we 
killed  ten,  wounded  one,  and  took  twenty-one  prisoners. 


Prologue  to  a  Forest  Tragedy    71 

Among  those  that  were  killed  was  Monsieur  Jumon- 
ville,  the  commander ;  principal  officers  taken  is  Mon- 
sieur Drouillon  and  Mons'r  La  Force,  who  your  Hon- 
our has  often  heard  me  speak  of  as  a  bold  enterprising 
man,  and  a  person  of  great  subtlety  and  cunning. 
With  these  are  two  cadets.  These  officers  pretend 
they  were  coming  on  an  embassy;  but  the  absurdity 
of  this  pretext  is  too  glaring,  as  your  Honour  will  see 
by  the  Instructions  and  Summons  enclosed.  These 
instructions  were  to  reconnoitre  the  country,  roads, 
creeks,  etc.,  to  Potomack,  which  they  were  about  to  do. 
These  enterprising  men  were  purposely  choose  out  to 
get  intelligence,  which  they  were  to  send  back  by  some 
brisk  despatches,  with  mention  of  the  day  that  they 
were  to  serve  the  summons ;  which  could  be  through 
no  other  view,  than  to  get  a  sufficient  reinforcement 
to  fall  upon  us  immediately  after.  This,  with  several 
other  reasons,  induced  all  the  officers  to  believe  firmly, 
that  they  were  sent  as  spies,  rather  than  any  thing 
else,  and  has  occasioned  my  sending  them  as  prisoners, 
tho  they  expected  or  at  least  had  some  faint  hope,  of 
being  continued  as  ambassadors.  They,  finding  where 
we  were  encamped,  instead  of  coming  up  in  a  publick 
manner,  sought  out  one  of  the  most  secret  retirements, 
fitter  for  a  deserter  than  an  ambassador  to  encamp  in, 
stayed  there  two  or  3  days,  sent  spies  to  reconnoitre 
our  camp,  as  we  are  told,  tho  they  deny  it.  Their  whole 
body  moved  back  near  2  miles,  sent  off  two  runners 
to  acquaint  Contrecoeur  with  our  strength,  and  where 
we  were  encamped,  etc.  Now  36  men  would  almost 
have  been  a  retinue  for  a  princely  ambassador,  instead 
of  a  petit.  Why  did  they,  if  their  designs  were  open, 
stay  so  long  within  5  miles  of  us,  without  delivering 


72  George  Washington 

his  ambassy,  or  acquainting  me  with  it?  His  waiting 
could  be  with  no  other  design,  than  to  get  [a]  detach- 
ment to  enforce  the  summons,  as  soon  as  it  was  given. 
They  had  no  occasion  to  send  out  spies,  for  the  name 
of  ambassador  is  sacred  among  all  nations ;  but  it  was 
by  the  track  of  these  spies,  that  they  were  discovered, 
and  we  got  intelligence  of  them.  They  would  not  have 
retired  two  miles  back  without  delivering  the  sum- 
mons, and  sought  a  skulking-place  (which,  to  do  them 
justice,  was  done  with  great  judgment),  but  for  some 
special  reason.  Besides,  the  summons  is  so  insolent, 
and  savours  so  much  of  gascoigny,  that  if  two  men  only 
had  come  openly  to  deliver  it,  it  was  too  great  indul- 
gence to  have  sent  them  back. 

"  The  sense  of  the  Half-King  on  this  subject  is,  that 
they  have  bad  hearts,  and  that  this  is  a  mere  pretence ; 
they  never  designed  to  have  come  to  us  but  in  a  hostile 
manner,  and  if  we  were  so  foolish  as  let  them  go  again, 
he  never  would  assist  us  in  taking  another  of  them. 
Besides,  loosing  La  Force,  I  really  think,  would  lead 
more  to  our  disservice,  than  50  other  men,  as  he  is  a 
person  whose  active  spirit  leads  him  into  all  parleys, 
and  brought  him  acquainted  with  all  parts,  add  to  this 
a  perfect  use  of  the  Indian  tongue,  and  ye  influence 
with  the  Indians. 

"  He  ingenuously  enough  confessed,  that,  as  soon  as 
he  saw  the  commission  and  instructions,  that  he  be- 
lieved, and  then  said  he  expected  some  such  tendency, 
tho  he  pretends  to  say  he  does  not  believe  the  com- 
mander had  any  other  but  a  good  design.  In  this  en- 
gagement we  had  only  one  man  killed  and  two  or  three 
wounded,  among  which  was  Lieutenant  Waggener 
slightly, — a  most  miraculous  escape,  as  our  right  wing 


Prologue  to  a  Forest  Tragedy    73 

was  much  exposed  to  their  fire  and  received  it  all. 
The  Half-King  received  your  Honour's  speech  very 
kind,  but  desired  me  to  inform  you,  that  he  could  not 
leave  his  people  at  this  time,  thinking  them  in  great 
danger.  He  is  now  gone  to  the  Crossing  for  their 
families,  to  bring  to  our  camp;  and  desired  I  would 
send  some  men  and  horses  to  assist  them  up,  which 
I  have  accordingly  done ;  sent  30  men  and  upwards 
of  twenty  horses.  He  says,  if  your  Honour  has  any 
thing  to  say,  you  may  communicate  by  me,  etc.,  and 
that,  if  you  have  a  present  for  them,  it  may  be  kept  to 
another  occasion,  after  sending  up  some  things  for 
their  immediate  use.  He  has  declared  to  [me  he 
would]  send  these  Frenchmen's  scalps,  with  a  hatchet, 
to  all  the  nations  of  Indians  in  union  with  them,  and 
did  that  very  day  give  a  hatchet,  and  a  large  belt  of 
wampum,  to  a  Delaware  man  to  carry  to  Shingiss. 
He  promised  me  to  send  down  the  river  for  all  the 
Mingoes  and  Shawanese  to  our  camp,  where  I  expect 
him  to-morrow  with  thirty  or  forty  men,  with  their 
wives  and  children.  To  confirm  what  he  has  said  here, 
he  has  sent  your  Honor  a  string  of  wampum. 

"  As  these  runners  went  off  to  the  fort  on  Sunday 
last,  I  shall  expect  every  hour  to  be  attacked,  and  by 
unequal  numbers,  which  I  must  withstand  if  there  are 
five  to  one ;  or  else  I  fear  the  consequence  will  be,  that 
we  shall  lose  the  Indians,  if  we  suffer  ourselves  to  be 
drove  back.  I  despatched  an  express  immediately  to 
Colonel  Fry  with  this  intelligence,  desiring  him  to 
send  reinforcements  with  all  imaginable  despatch. 

"  Your  Honor  may  depend  I  will  not  be  surprised, 
let  them  come  at  what  hour  they  will ;  and  this  is  as 
much  as  I  can  promise.  But  my  best  endeavours  shall 


74  George  Washington 

not  be  wanting  to  deserve  more.  I  doubt  not,  but  if 
you  hear  I  am  beaten,  but  you  will,  at  the  same  [time,] 
hear  that  we  have  done  our  duty,  in  fighting  as  long 
fas]  there  was  a  possibility  of  hope. 

"I  have  sent  Lieutenant  West,  accompanied  with 
Mr.  Splitdorph  and  a  guard  of  20  men,  to  conduct  the 
prisoners  in,  and  I  believe  the  officers  have  acquainted 
him  what  answer  to  return  your  Honour.  Monsieur 
La  Force  and  Monsieur  Drouillon  beg  to  be  recom- 
mended to  your  Honor's  notice,  and  I  have  prom- 
ised they  will  meet  with  all  the  favour  due  to  impris- 
oned officers.  I  have  show'd  all  the  respect  I  could 
to  them  here,  and  have  given  some  necessary  cloathing, 
by  which  I  have  disfurnished  myself ;  for,  having 
brought  no  more  than  two  or  three  shirts  from  Will's 
Creek,  that  we  might  be  light,  I  was  ill  provided  to 
furnish  them.  I  am,  etc. 

"  P.  S.  I  have  neither  seen  nor  heard  any  particu- 
lar account  of  the  Twigtwees  since  I  came  on  these 
waters.  We  have  already  begun  a  palisadoed  fort, 
and  hope  to  have  it  up  to-morrow.  I  must  beg  leave 
to  acquaint  your  Honour,  that  Captain  Vanbraam  and 
Ensign  Peyrouny  has  behaved  extremely  well  since 
they  came  out,  and  I  hope  will  meet  with  your  Hon- 
or's favor."  1 

This  little  skirmish  was  really  the  "  cannon  ball  " 
whose  discharge,  as  Voltaire  said,  "  set  Europe  on 
fire,"  and  was  heard  all  over  the  world.  The  death 
of  Jumonville  led  to  Braddock,  and  Braddock  led 
to  Montcalm  and  Wolfe  and  the  downfall  of  France 
in  America  in  1763,  after  seventy  years  of  struggle. 

'Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  i,  p.  82. 


Prologue  to  a  Forest  Tragedy    75 

Says  Ford :  "  Meantime  the  garrison  at  Duquesne 
had  received  additions,  and  Coulon  de  Villiers,  a 
brother  of  Jumonville,  had  arrived  from  Montreal 
with  a  large  force  of  Indians."  It  was  at  once  de- 
termined to  "  avenge  the  murder  of  Jumonville  " 
and  to  attack  the  English  whether  found  on  soil 
claimed  by  the  French  or  on  territory  that  was 
English  beyond  any  doubt.  The  party,  under  the 
command  of  Villiers,  reached  Red  Stone  Creek  on 
June  3Oth,  and,  on  July  2d,  the  camp  at  Gist's  so 
recently  abandoned  by  Washington.  From  the  In- 
dian scouts  the  position  of  the  ^English  was  soon 
determined,  and  on  the  next  day  the  two  forces 
met.  Washington  had  made  a  small  trench  for  pro- 
tection, but  it  proved  of  little  service,  as  his  men  were 
exposed  to  a  cross-fire  from  the  French  and  In- 
dians. What  followed  is  best  told  in  the  language 
of  Governor  Dinwiddie: 

"  Immediately  they  [the  French]  appeared  in  sight 
of  our  camp,  and  fired  at  our  people  at  a  great  dis- 
tance, which  did  no  harm.  Our  small  forces  were 
drawn  up  in  good  order  to  receive  them  before  their 
entrenchments,  but  did  not  return  their  first  fire,  re- 
serving it  till  they  came  nigher.  The  enemy  advanced 
irregularly  within  60  yards  of  our  forces,  and  then 
made  a  second  discharge,  and  observing  they  did  not 
intend  to  attack  them  in  open  field,  they  retired  within 
their  trenches,  and  reserved  their  fire,  thinking  from 
their  numbers  they  would  force  their  trenches,  but 
finding  they  made  no  attempt  of  this  kind,  the  Colonel 
gave  orders  to  our  people  to  fire  on  the  enemy,  which 


76  George  Washington 

they  did  with  great  briskness,  and  the  officers  declare 
this  engagement  continued  from  n  o'clock  till  8 
o'clock  at  night,  they  being  without  shelter,  rainy 
weather,  and  their  trenches  to  the  knee  in  water,  where- 
as the  French  were  sheltered  all  round  our  camp  by 
trees ;  from  thence  they  galled  our  people  all  the  time 
as  above.  About  8  o'clock  at  night  the  French  called 
out  to  parley;  our  people  mistrusting  their  sincerity, 
from  their  numbers  and  other  advantages,  refused.  At 
last  they  desired  [us]  to  send  an  officer  that  could 
speak  French,  and  they  gave  their  parole  for  his  safe 
return  to  them,  on  which  the  Commander  sent  two  offi- 
cers to  whom  they  gave  their  proposals.  .  .  .  From  our 
few  numbers  and  our  bad  situation,  they  were  glad 
to  accept  them ;  otherways  were  determined  to  lose 
their  lives  rather  than  be  taken  prisoners.  The  next 
morning  a  party  from  the  French  came  and  took  pos- 
session of  our  encampment,  and  our  people  marched 
off  with  colors  flying  and  beat  of  drum ;  but  there  ap- 
peared a  fresh  party  of  100  Indians  to  join  the  French, 
who  galled  our  people  much,  and  with  difficulty  were 
restrained  from  attacking  them;  however,  they  pil- 
fered our  people's  baggage,  and  at  the  beginning  of 
the  engagement  the  French  killed  all  the  horses,  cattle 
and  live  creatures  they  saw,  so  that  our  forces  were 
obliged  to  carry  off  the  wounded  men  on  their  backs 
to  some  distance  from  the  place  of  the  engagement, 
where  they  left  them  with  a  guard;  the  scarcity  of 
provisions  made  them  make  quick  marches  to  get 
among  the  inhabitants  which  was  about  60  miles  of 
bad  road."  l 

'Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  i,  p.  119. 


Prologue  to  a  Forest  Tragedy    77 

The  capture  of  Colonel  Washington  and  his  little 
band  by  superior  French  forces  at  Fort  Necessity, 
in  midsummer  of  1754,  almost  exactly  a  year  before 
Braddock's  defeat  near  the  same  place  the  following 
summer,  so  far  from  rousing  the  resentment  of  the 
burgesses,  as  one  might  have  expected,  drew  from 
them  the  heartiest  appreciation  of  Colonel  Wash- 
ington's heroism  in  holding  out  so  long,  and  a  vote 
of  thanks  for  his  gallant  conduct. 

In  a  famous  postscript  to  a  letter  to  his  brother, 
describing  Jumonville's  death  a  few  months  before, 
Washington  wrote: 

"  P.  S.  I  fortunately  escaped  without  any  wound, 
for  the  right  wing,  where  I  stood,  was  exposed  to  and 
received  all  the  enemy's  fire,  and  it  was  the  part  where 
the  man  was  killed,  and  the  rest  wounded.  I  heard  the 
bullets  whistle,  and,  believe  me,  there  is  something 
charming  in  the  sound." 

From  the  London  Magazine,  August,  1754. 

"  In  the  express,  which  Major  Washington  de- 
spatched on  his  preceding  little  victory  (the  skirmish 
with  Jumonville),  he  concluded  with  these  words, — 
'/  heard  the  bullets  whistle,  and,  believe  me,  there  is 
something  charming  in  the  sound.'  On  hearing  of 
this  the  King  said  sensibly, — 'He  would  not  say  so, 
if  he  had  been  used  to  hear  many/  However,  this 
brave  braggart  learned  to  blush  for  his  rhodomontade, 
and,  desiring  to  serve  General  Braddock  as  aid-de- 
camp, acquitted  himself  nobly." 

It  was  seldom,  indeed,  that  the  reticent  Virginian 
broke  into  such  rare  hyperbole  as  this  over  the 


78  George  Washington 

charm  of  the  whizzing  bullet,  whose  music  was  to 
be  henceforth  the  chief  companion  of  his  military 
and  administrative  life.  The  absurd  charge  brought 
by  the  French,  that  Washington  had  "  assassi- 
nated "  Jumonville  in  the  skirmish  preliminary  to 
the  surrender,  was  vigorously  resented  and  abso- 
lutely refuted,  by  the  Virginian  in  a  detailed  com- 
munication to  the  Governor. 

One  good  purpose  this  first  humiliation  of  Wash- 
ington served:  it  rang  through  the  colonies  like  an 
alarm-bell  and  aroused  Pennsylvania,  Maryland, 
New  York,  and  Massachusetts  to  the  need  of  im- 
mediate co-operation,  combination,  concentration 
of  ways  and  means,  and  united  resistance  to  the 
now  overshadowing  peril  of  the  Western  frontier. 
Boundary  disputes  were  forgotten;  lagging  legisla- 
tures awoke  to  the  extremity  of  the  danger;  con- 
tentions over  rank  and  pay  ceased  for  a  moment; 
abundant  means  were  voted  by  the  people's  repre- 
sentatives at  Williamsburg,  Philadelphia,  Albany, 
and  Boston,  and  aroused  public  sentiment  flamed 
forth,  like  a  sudden  conflagration,  in  favour  of  quick 
and  concentrated  effort  in  the  West. 

France,  at  this  time,  had  the  reputation  of  being 
as  irresistible  on  land  as  England  was  resistless  at 
sea ;  the  navy  of  the  one,  with  its  two  hundred  war- 
ships, might  prance  over  the  seas,  but  not  over  the 
measureless  forests  of  America,  while  the  180,000 
veterans  of  France,  lineal  descendants  of  the  heroes 
who  had  served  under  Turenne  and  Vendome, 
Prince  Eugene  and  Marshal  Saxe,  might  well  in- 


Prologue  to  a  Forest  Tragedy    79 

spire  a  dread  that  had  no  bounds,  should  any  con- 
siderable number  of  them  board  the  hundred  war- 
ships of  the  French  navy,  the  "  ocean  greyhounds  " 
of  the  day  —  and  leap  over  bounding  waves  from 
Brest  and  Rochefort  to  Quebec  and  Montreal. 

And  this  was  precisely  what  happened.  Eighteen 
French  warships  with  three  thousand  regulars 
started  out  of  these  harbours  and  made  for  the  mouth 
of  the  St.  Lawrence  as  fast  as  wind  and  waves  could 
carry  them.  Almost  simultaneously,  an  English 
fleet  under  Vice-Admiral  Boscawen  set  sail  in  pur- 
suit, to  head  off  this  formidable  armada  and  destroy 
it  off  the  coast  of  Newfoundland.  Three  French 
ships  alone  were  captured,  the  rest  escaping 
triumphantly  out  of  the  fog  into  the  broad  and 
hospitable  jaws  of  the  mighty  river,  which  bore 
them  easily  up  into  the  very  heart  of  the  continent. 

Even  in  those  days  of  slow-travelling  Rumour,  it 
was  not  long  before  the  bad  news  from  Virginia 
reached  the  Downing  Street  of  the  day,  and  created 
consternation  there.  An  officer  who  flits  fitfully 
across  the  pages  of  Franklin's  Autobiography  and 
Horace  Walpole's  correspondence  —  General  Ed- 
ward Braddock  —  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
Foreign  Office,  and  was  put  in  command  of  the 
44th  and  48th  regiments,  with  orders  to  sail  from 
Cork  to  Hampton  Roads,  without  further  loss  of 
time.  The  regiments,  accustomed  to  the  ways  of 
civilised  European  warfare  with  civilised  foes, 
were  loth  enough  to  traverse  the  stormy  seas  in 
mid-winter,  and  march  into  the  spectral  forests  of 


8o  George  Washington 

the  Alleghanies,  to  face  the  hideous  Red  Skins  in 
their  very  dens.  General  Braddock  himself  left 
England  with  a  heavy  heart,  weighed  down  with 
a  strange  presentiment. 

Braddock  was  a  Perthshire  Scotchman,  a  sin- 
gular mixture  of  rough  honesty,  insolence,  igno- 
rance, personal  valour,  and  brutality, — a  Miles 
Gloriosus,  of  the  type  graphically  portrayed  by  the 
Roman  comedian,  yet  touched  with  traits  that  served 
to  enhance  the  profound  pathos  and  paradox  of  his 
career. 

He  smiled  derisively  when  Franklin,  "  the  sub- 
lime of  common  sense,"  told  him  of  the  dangers  of 
Indian  warfare,  the  possibilities  of  ambuscades,  and 
the  wiliness  of  this  aboriginal  foe  who,  more  like 
a  bird  of  the  air  or  a  beast  of  the  fields,  flitted, 
wraithlike,  among  his  forests  as  one  of  its  beloved 
children,  and  appeared  and  disappeared  with  the 
swiftness  of  a  dream. 

The  choleric  Scotchman,  unimaginative  as  he 
was,  and  unskilled  in  any  form  of  warfare  except 
that  in  which  he  had  figured  at  Gibraltar,  in  the 
gilded  manoeuvres  of  the  Coldstream  Guards  whom 
he  joined  as  a  lad  of  15,  in  1710,  or  in  dancing  at- 
tendance on  the  mistress  whom  Walpole  describes, 
pooh-poohed  the  statements  of  the  wise  American, 
then  Postmaster-General  of  Pennsylvania,  and  set 
him  down,  doubtless,  as  a  Quaker  poltroon.  He 
disclosed  to  Franklin  a  veritable  milkmaid's  dream, 
in  the  words  of  the  sagacious  autobiographer : 


Prologue  to  a  Forest  Tragedy    81 

"  In  conversation  with  him  one  day,  he  was  giving 
me  some  account  of  his  intended  progress.  '  After 
taking  Fort  Duquesne,'  said  he,  '  I  am  to  proceed  to 
Niagara;  and,  having  taken  that,  to  Frontenac,  if  the 
season  will  allow  time,  and  I  suppose  it  will;  for  Du- 
quesne can  hardly  detain  me  above  three  or  four  days ; 
and  then  I  see  nothing  that  can  obstruct  my  march  to 
Niagara.' 

"  Having  before  revolved  in  my  mind,"  continues 
Franklin,  "  the  long  line  his  army  must  make  in  their 
march  by  a  very  narrow  road,  to  be  cut  for  them 
through  the  woods  and  bushes,  and  also  what  I  had 
read  of  a  former  defeat  of  fifteen  hundred  French, 
who  invaded  the  Illinois  country,  I  had  conceived  some 
doubts  and  some  fears  for  the  event  of  the  campaign. 
But  I  ventured  only  to  say,  To  be  sure,  Sir,  if  you 
arrive  well  before  Duquesne,  with  these  fine  troops, 
so  well-provided  with  artillery,  the  fort,  though  com- 
pletely fortified,  and  assisted  with  a  very  strong  gar- 
rison, can  probably  make  but  a  short  resistance.  The 
only  danger  I  apprehend  of  obstruction  to  your  march, 
is  from  the  ambuscades  of  the  Indians,  who,  by  con- 
stant practice,  are  dexterous  in  laying  and  executing 
them ;  and  the  slender  line,  near  four  miles  long,  which 
your  army  must  make,  may  expose  it  to  be  attacked 
by  surprise  in  its  flanks,  and  to  be  cut  like  a  thread 
into  several  pieces,  which,  from  their  distance,  cannot 
come  up  in  time  to  support  each  other. 

"  He  smiled  at  my  ignorance,  and  replied,  '  These 
savages  may  indeed  be  a  formidable  enemy  to  your 
raw  American  militia;  but  upon  the  King's  regular 
and  disciplined  troops,  Sir,  it  is  impossible  they  should 
make  any  impression.'  I  was  conscious  of  an  impro- 


82  George  Washington 

priety  in  my  disputing  with  a  military  man  in  matters 
of  his  profession,  and  said  no  more. 

"  This  General  was,  I  think,  a  brave  man,  and  might 
probably  have  made  a  figure  as  a  good  officer  in  some 
European  war.  But  he  had  too  much  self-confidence, 
too  high  an  opinion  of  the  validity  of  regular  troops, 
and  too  mean  a  one  of  both  Americans  and  Indians. 
George  Croghan,  our  Indian  interpreter,  joined  him 
on  his  march  with  one  hundred  of  those  people,  who 
might  have  been  of  great  use  to  his  army  as  guides 
and  scouts,  if  he  had  treated  them  kindly;  but  he 
slighted  and  neglected  them,  and  they  gradually  left 
him." * 

By  February,  1755,  "  the  cruel,  crawling  waves  " 
had  wafted  the  five  hundred  gallant  Britishers 
from  the  soft,  green  pastures  and  shining  Shannon 
of  Ireland,  to  the  beautiful  silver  expanse  of  Hamp- 
ton Roads  and  the  Potomac,  where  their  doom 
awaited  them. 

All  the  elements  of  pity  and  terror,  maintained 
by  Aristotle  to  be  the  foundation  of  Tragedy,  were 
here  in  abundance — reckless  courage,  personal 
gallantry,  unquestioning  confidence,  high  and  in- 
vincible purpose  to  quell  for  ever  the  Gallic  preten- 
sions, and  pluck  the  Bourbon  lily  up  by  the  roots 
from  places  immemorially  sacred  to  the  Saxon  rose. 

Dinwiddie  was  charmed  with  the  General,  his 
fellow-countryman,  and  with  his  show  of  force- 
fulness  and  resource.  A  council  of  five  governors 
— Sharpe  of  Maryland,  Shirley  of  Massachusetts, 

1  Sparks,  Life  of  Franklin,  vol.  i,  p.  189. 


Prologue  to  a  Forest  Tragedy    83 

Delancy  of  New  York,  Morris  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
Dinwiddie  of  Virginia,  met  at  Alexandria  to  con- 
cert measures  in  harmony  with  the  commander- 
in-chief,  to  crush  the  enemy  in  Acadia,  at  Crown 
Point,  at  Fort  Niagara,  and  at  Fort  Duquesne. 

The  wildest  and  least  winsome  of  these  opera- 
tions, those  against  Duquesne,  fell  naturally  to  the 
lot  of  Braddock,  who  now  that  they  were  about  to 
begin,  fell  into  a  frame  of  furious  petulance  and 
impatience  that-  no  proper  preparations  had  been 
made  for  them  by  the  colonial  governments;  no 
horses  or  waggons  were  to  be  had,  food  for  the  sol- 
diers was,  so  to  speak,  still  growing  in  the  green 
maize-fields  around,  or  running  wild  in  four-legged 
independence  in  the  Virginia  woods,  while  their 
six  hundred  pack-horses  fed  on  the  leaves  of  the 
trees.  He  abused  all  Americans,  except  the  men 
of  Massachusetts  and  of  Virginia,  and  among  the 
serenely  stupid  Friends,  in  their  imperturbable  ob- 
stinacy, found  only  Franklin  to  praise. 

And,  but  for  Franklin's  assistance  in  procuring  a 
hundred  and  fifty  waggons  and  their  accoutrements 
from  the  stubborn  and  penurious  Germans  and 
Quakers  of  his  province,  he  could  not  have  moved 
a  step. 

Here  as  elsewhere  in  this  remarkable  Revolution, 
Franklin  and  Washington  emerge  together,  stand- 
ing in  a  blaze  of  light,  even  at  this  early  period,  as 
the  right  and  left  arm,  the  battle-axe  and  the  cleaver 
of  the  Revolutionary  movement. 


84  George  Washington 

There  was  twenty-six  years  difference  in  their 
ages;  Franklin  was  the  kind  of  man  that  always 
seems  born  old,  between  whom  and  common  sense 
there  was  a  pre-established  harmony,  who  infallibly 
takes  the  right  view  of  things  from  the  start,  and 
once  taken,  never  deserts  it  for  more  plausible  or 
more  fallacious  views.  Beneath  his  smile  of  benig- 
nity lurked  a  world  of  shrewdness  that  had  at  its 
beck  and  call  an  epigrammatic  felicity  of  phrase,  an 
aptitude  for  coining  itself  into  axioms  that  became 
proverbs,  and  proverbs  that  wrote  themselves, 
almost  automatically,  into  the  head-lines  of  copy- 
books, to  be  endlessly  repeated  in  the  myriad  school- 
boy handwritings  of  the  time.  He  was  his  own 
Poor  Richard's  Almanac,  incarnate.  Massachusetts, 
quick,  keen,  humorous,  full  of  dry  wit  and  intel- 
lectual virility — Hosea  Biglow  in  nascendo — tin- 
gled in  every  vein,  shed  humorous  philosophy  over 
every  discussion,  illuminated  every  conversation 
with  point  and  epigram.  Brilliantly  original  in 
scientific  research,  endlessly  inventive  in  the  appli- 
cation of  his  knowledge  to  the  common  conveniences 
of  life,  Franklin  opened  his  wise  old  child's  eye  on 
things  around  him  as  naively  at  eighty  as  he  did  at 
twenty-six,  while  the  wit  and  sense  of  the  genera- 
tions before  him  seemed  to  concentrate  themselves, 
and  run  down  into  a  mould  which  was  the  incarna- 
tion of  this  new  American  man. 

How  different  was  Washington,  in  whom  Vir- 
ginia, with  all  its  faults  and  nobilities,  its  high 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  IN  1779. 
From  an  oil-painting  in  the  possession  of  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania. 


Prologue  to  a  Forest  Tragedy    85 

seriousness  and  lofty  sense  of  duty,  its  martial  ardour 
and  generous,  chivalrous  ways,  was  as  truly  typified, 
as  was  the  clever  New  England  spirit  clarified  and 
concentrated  in  the  printer-electrician,  diplomat, 
and  philosopher. 


CHAPTER  VI 

IN  THE  TRAGICAL  WOOD 

BRADDOCK  had  heard  of  the  fame  of  this  fine, 
young  colonel,  not  only  at  Williamsburg,  but 
more  probably  in  London  drawing-rooms,  where 
his  gallantry  had  often  been  the  subject  of  conversa- 
tion. He  was  the  one  figure  in  all  Virginia  then, 
that  the  Scotch  Commander  could  not  afford  to 
overlook,  though  he  was  surrounded  by  an  imposing 
retinue  of  captains,  of  high  officials  like  Sir  John 
Sinclair  and  Sir  Peter  Halket,  and  functionaries, 
half  military,  half  civilian,  who  hoped  to  share  in 
the  glories  of  this  new  invincible  Armada. 

He  was  immediately  and  most  courteously  in- 
vited to  serve  on  General  Braddock's  staff,  and  to 
form  one  of  his  military  family.  The  letters  that 
passed  between  them  are  equally  creditable  to  both 
sides : 

"  Williamsburg,  2  March,  1755. 
"  SIR, 

''  The  General  having  been  informed  that  you  ex- 
pressed some  desire  to  make  the  campaign,  but  that 
you  declined  it  upon  some  disagreeableness  that  you 
thought  might  arise  from  the  regulation  of  command, 
has  ordered  me  to  acquaint  you,  that  he  will  be  very 
glad  of  your  company  in  his  family,  by  which  all  in- 
conveniences of  that  kind  will  be  obviated. 

86 


In  the  Tragical  Wood  87 

"  I  shall  think  myself  very  happy  to  form  an  ac- 
quaintance with  a  person  so  universally  esteemed,  and 
shall  use  every  opportunity  of  assuring  you  how  much 
I  am,  Sir,  your  most  obedient  servant, 

"  ROBERT  ORME,  Aid-de-camp." 

"  To  ROBERT  ORME 

"  Mount  Vernon,  15  March,  1755. 
"  SIR, 

"  I  was  not  favored  with  your  polite  letter,  of  the 
2d  inst,  until  yesterday;  acquainting  me  with  the  no- 
tice his  Excellency,  General  Braddock,  is  pleased  to 
honor  me  with,  by  kindly  inviting  me  to  become  one 
of  his  family  the  ensuing  campaign.  It  is  true,  Sir, 
that  I  have,  ever  since  I  declined  my  late  command, 
expressed  an  inclination  to  serve  the  ensuing  cam- 
paign as  a  volunteer;  and  this  inclination  is  not  a 
little  increased,  since  it  is  likely  to  be  conducted  by  a 
gentleman  of  the  General's  experience. 

"  But,  besides  this,  and  the  laudable  desire  I  may 
have  to  serve,  with  my  best  abilities,  my  King  and 
country,  I  must  be  ingenuous  enough  to  confess,  that 
I  am  not  a  little  biassed  by  selfish  considerations.  To 
explain,  Sir,  I  wish  earnestly  to  attain  some  knowl- 
edge in  the  military  profession,  and  believing  a  more 
favorable  opportunity  cannot  offer,  than  to  serve 
under  a  gentleman  of  General  Braddock's  abilities 
and  experience,  it  does,  as  you  may  reasonably  sup- 
pose, not  a  little  contribute  to  influence  my  choice. 
But,  Sir,  as  I  have  taken  the  liberty  to  express  my 
sentiments  so  freely,  I  shall  beg  your  indulgence  while 
I  add,  that  the  only  bar,  which  can  check  me  in  the 
pursuit  of  this  object,  is  the  inconveniences  that  must 


88  George  Washington 

necessarily  result  from  some  proceedings  which  hap- 
pened a  little  before  the  General's  arrival,  and  which, 
in  some  measure,  had  abated  the  ardor  of  my  desires, 
and  determined  me  to  lead  a  life  of  retirement,  into 
which  I  was  just  entering,  at  no  small  expense,  when 
your  favour  was  presented  to  me. 

"  But,  as  I  shall  do  myself  the  honor  of  waiting 
upon  his  Excellency,  as  soon  as  I  hear  of  his  arrival 
at  Alexandria,  (and  would  sooner,  were  I  certain  where 
to  find  him,)  I  shall  decline  saying  any  thing  further 
on  this  head  till  then;  begging  you  will  be  pleased 
to  assure  him,  that  I  shall  always  retain  a  grateful 
sense  of  the  favour  with  which  he  is  pleased  to  hon- 
or me,  and  that  I  should  have  embraced  this  oppor- 
tunity of  writing  to  him,  had  I  not  recently  addressed 
a  congratulatory  letter  to  him  on  his  safe  arrival  in 
this  country.  I  flatter  myself  you  will  favour  me  in 
making  a  communication  of  these  sentiments. 

"  You  do  me  a  singular  favour,  in  proposing  an  ac- 
quaintance. It  cannot  but  be  attended  with  the  most 
flattering  prospects  of  intimacy  on  my  part,  as  you 
may  already  perceive,  by  the  familiarity  and  freedom 
with  which  I  now  enter  upon  this  correspondence;  a 
freedom,  which,  even  if  it  is  disagreeable,  you  must  ex- 
cuse, as  I  may  lay  the  blame  of  it  at  your  door,  for 
encouraging  me  to  throw  off  that  restraint,  which 
otherwise  might  have  been  more  obvious  in  my  de- 
portment on  such  an  occasion. 

"  The  hope  of  shortly  seeing  you  will  be  an  excuse 
for  my  not  adding  more,  than  that  I  shall  endeavour 
to  approve  myself  worthy  of  your  friendship,  and  that 
I  beg  to  be  esteemed  your  most  obedient  servant."  x 

'Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  i,  p.  141. 


In  the  Tragical  Wood  89 

And  so  events  moved  on.  Merrily  had  the  leap- 
ing transport-ships  sped  over  the  crisping  waves,  in 
the  keen  January  blasts,  out  of  the  picturesque  river 
that  flowed  from  the  heart  of  Ireland,  full  of  proud, 
gallant  men,  never  dreaming  of  defeat,  while  nat- 
urally dreading  an  insidious  foe.  Merrily  had  they 
come  to  anchor  in  the  spacious  stretches  of  Hampton 
Water,  which  receives,  as  in  a  mighty  bowl,  the 
ample  flood  of  the  historic  James,  the  very  cor 
cordium  of  the  ancient  commonwealth;  and  many 
a  famous  talk  had  the  two  Scotchmen — Dinwiddie 
and  Braddock — together,  over  the  sunny  Madeira 
and  fuming  Virginia  posset-bowl,  confidentially, 
concerning  the  details  of  the  approaching. campaign. 

March  passed,  however, — April — May ;  the  lovely 
Virginia  spring  came  and  went,  mantled  in  bloom, 
filled  with  the  exquisite  scents  and  perfumes  of  a 
climate  most  perfectly  mixed  of  heat  and  cold;  the 
vivid  vegetation  of  early  summer  had  ripened  into 
the  matronly  luxuriance  of  June,  and  still  the  army 
had  not  started  from  its  place  of  assembly  at  Fort 
Cumberland,  one  hundred  and  forty  miles  from  Fort 
Duquesne.  In  the  primitive  war-tactics  of  the  day, 
no  one,  wrote  Washington  in  a  letter  to  Warner 
Lewis,  knew  anything  of  the  strength  of  the  French 
on  the  Ohio — "  On  the  Ohio  "  being  an  expression  as 
void  of  definitiness  then,  as  "  on  the  Amazon," 
or  "  on  the  Congo  "  would  be  to  us  now.  The 
country  swept  away  to  the  West  and  South  in 
one  illimitable  ocean  of  leaves  and  limbs,  so  dense 
that  the  stars  almost  ceased  to  twinkle  through  them 


go  George  Washington 

at  night,  and  the  bewildered  wanderer  might  try 
in  vain,  with  rude  astrolabe  or  magnetic  needle,  to 
fix  his  bearings.  Fifty-two  miles  beyond  Fort 
Cumberland  lay  Fort  Necessity,  fatally  familiar  to 
Washington,  as  the  scene  of  his  capitulation  to  the 
French  only  a  few  months  before.  No  news,  only 
the  vast  and  appalling  noises  of  the  forest,  crossed 
the  forty  leagues  of  distance  that  lay  between  the 
Monongahela  and  Will's  Creek,  where  Braddock, 
infuriated  at  the  delays  and  chafing  like  a  chained 
lion,  lay  snorting  with  impatience;  behind  him,  fair 
Virginia,  wreathed  in  the  peaceful  smoke  of  endless 
calumet-pipes  encircling  the  generous  dinner-tables, 
full  of  fruits  and  fragrance  and  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  of  civilisation;  before  him,  the  savage 
wood  that  stretched  apparently  to  infinity,  peopled 
with  dark  forms  and  glittering  eyes  that  watched 
every  movement  with  the  cunning  and  intensity  of 
the  hawk,  the  wolf,  and  the  bear  from  which,  half 
bird,  half  beast,  they  traced  their  fantastic  descent. 
About  June  the  gth  they  started,  cleaving  their 
way  into  the  forest  with  three  hundred  axes,  which 
hacked  furiously  at  the  tough  stems  of  oak  and 
chestnut,  pine,  spruce,  and  maple,  levelling  a  road 
twelve  feet  wide,  through  and  over  underbrush  for 
the  passage  of  parks  of  artillery,  heavy  waggons, 
pack-horses,  stores,  ammunition,  accoutrements,  and 
hospital  provisions,  vindictively  attacking  tree- 
trunks,  and  disrupting  the  beautiful  architecture  of 
the  forest  as  they  hewed  into  its  living  aisles,  and 
cleared  a  sinuous  course  through  its  echoing  arches. 


In  the  Tragical  Wood  91 

Travellers  through  this  lovely  region  of  the  Union, 
to-day,  still  admire  the  magnificent  remnants  of 
wood  and  forest  that  join  Pittsburg  to  Cumberland, 
and  that  still  exist,  like  the  pages  of  some  splendid 
vellum  from  which  vandals  have  ruthlessly  torn  the 
finest  illustrations. 

Bitterly  did  Washington,  a  few  months  later, 
complain  of  the  slowness  of  this  march.  "  In  four 
days,"  he  remarks,  "  we  moved  only  twelve  miles;" 
in  ten  days  they  had  hewn  their  way  to  Little 
Meadows,  thirty  miles  from  the  starting  point  and 
only  one  fourth  of  the  toilsome  way  to  Duquesne. 

Parching  midsummer  was  at  hand  when  the  snows 
of  January  (the  month  of  their  departure  from 
Cork)  had  melted  into  a  mere  reminiscence. 

A  little  before,  the  mountains  of  this  Alleghany 
region  had  been  white  with  the  wondrous,  wild  rho- 
dodendron which  cleaves  the  crevices  of  every  rock, 
and  covers  their  nakedness  with  a  mantle  of  floral 
loveliness,  vying  with  the  blush-pink  masses  of  the 
mountain-laurel,  to  make  every  cool  covert  of  these 
woods,  not  carved  into  altars  of  emerald  by  moss 
and  fern,  beautiful  as  the  Vale  of  Tempe. 

Strategically,  the  critics  now  see  that  all  this  hew- 
ing and  ploughing  through  the  cruel  wilderness  was 
a  monstrous  blunder:  Braddock,  as  Franklin  ad- 
vised, should  have  landed  at  Philadelphia,  advanced 
westward  on  Duquesne  through  the  thickly-peopled, 
fertile  country  of  Pennsylvania,  where  the  roads 
were  good  and  provisions  abundant,  and  finished 
his  campaign  triumphantly  in  six  easy  weeks. 


92  George  Washington 

Four  whole  months  and  half  of  another  actually 
elapsed,  however,  before  this  dramatic  game  of 
hide-and-seek  in  the  forest  came  to  an  end. 

An  eminent  historian  describes  the  scene  as  fol- 
lows: 

"Thus,  foot  by  foot,  they  advanced  into  the  waste 
of  lonely  mountains  that  divided  the  streams  flowing 
to  the  Atlantic  from  those  flowing  to  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico, — a  realm  of  forests  ancient  as  the  world. 
The  road  was  but  twelve  feet  wide,  and  the  line  of 
march  often  extended  four  miles.  It  was  like  a  thin, 
long,  party-coloured  snake,  red,  blue,  and  brown, 
trailing  slowly  through  the  depth  of  leaves,  creeping 
round  inaccessible  heights,  crawling  over  ridges,  mov- 
ing always  in  dampness  and  shadow,  by  rivulets  and 
waterfalls,  crags  and  chasms,  gorges  and  shaggy 
steeps.  In  glimpses  only,  through  jagged  boughs  and 
flickering  leaves,  did  this  wild  primeval  world  reveal 
itself,  with  its  dark  green  mountains,  flecked  with  the 
morning  mist,  and  its  distant  summits  pencilled  in 
dreamy  blue.  The  army  passed  the  main  Alleghany, 
Meadow  Mountain,  and  Great  Savage  Mountain,  and 
traversed  the  funereal  pine-forest,  afterwards  called 
the  Shades  of  Death.  No  attempt  was  made  to  inter- 
rupt their  march,  though  the  commandant  of  Fort 
Duquesne  had  sent  out  parties  for  that  purpose."  x 

In  spite  of  the  statement  of  this  eminent  writer, 
that  Braddock  did  not  rush  headlong  into  an  ambus- 
cade, we  are  forced  to  take  Washington's  own 
words,  in  his  official  report  to  Dinwiddie,  that  he 
did.  Says  Parkman: 

1  Parkman,  Montcalm  and  Wolfe,  vol.  i,  p.  205. 


In  the  Tragical  Wood  93 

"  Braddock  has  been  charged  with  marching  blindly 
into  an  ambuscade;  but  it  was  not  so.  There  was  no 
ambuscade;  and  had  there  been  one,  he  would  have 
found  it.  It  is  true  that  he  did  not  reconnoitre  the 
woods  very  far  in  advance  of  the  head  of  the  column ; 
yet,  with  this  exception,  he  made  elaborate  dispositions 
to  prevent  surprise.  Several  guides,  with  six  Vir- 
ginian light  horsemen,  led  the  way.  Then,  a  musket- 
shot  behind,  came  the  vanguard ;  then  three  hundred 
soldiers  under  Gage ;  then  a  large  body  of  axe-men, 
under  Sir  John  Sinclair,  to  open  the  road ;  then  two 
cannon  with  tumbrils  and  tool-waggons ;  and  lastly 
the  rear-guard,  closing  the  line,  while  flanking-par- 
ties  ranged  the  woods  on  both  sides.  This  was  the 
advance-column.  The  main  body  followed  with  little 
or  no  interval.  The  artillery  and  waggons  moved  along 
the  road,  and  the  troops  filed  through  the  woods  close 
on  either  hand.  Numerous  flanking-parties  were 
thrown  out  a  hundred  yards  and  more  to  right  and 
left;  while,  in  the  space  between  them  and  the  march- 
ing column,  the  pack  horses  and  cattle,  with  their 
drivers,  made  their  way  painfully  among  the  trees 
and  thickets ;  since,  had  they  been  allowed  to  follow 
the  road,  the  line  of  march  would  have  been  too  long 
for  mutual  support.  A  body  of  regulars  and  provin- 
cials brought  up  the  rear."  * 

Washington  had  the  best  means  of  knowing  what 
actually  happened,  being  very  near  to  Braddock,  and 
he  says  explicitly  to  the  Governor : 

"When  we  came  to  the  place   [Frazier's,  7  miles 
1  Parkman,  Montcalm  and  Wolfe,  vol.  i,  p.  214. 


Q4  George  Washington 

from  Duquesne],  we  were  attacked  (very  unexpected- 
ly) by  about  300  French  and  Indians." 

In  the  number  alone  he  was  mistaken.  There  were 
900  French,  Canadians,  Indians,  and  half-breeds — 
Braddock  had  started  with  2200  men,  among  whom 
were  nine  companies  of  Virginians,  of  fifty  or  more 
men  each,  whose  blue  uniforms  and  provincial  ways 
excited  the  derision  of  the  scarlet-coated  regulars, 
fresh  from  their  European  laurels.  The  number  had 
somehow  dwindled  to  1300  (according  to  Wash- 
ington), and  these,  plunging  ignorantly  into  the 
all-swallowing  wilderness,  blundered  recklessly  on 
without  ever  dreaming  of  sending  out  scouts  or  skir- 
mishers. The  Virginians  were  fully  aware  of  the 
dangers  of  the  movement,  for  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  of  Indian  warfare  had  accustomed  them 
to  the  subtlety  of  this  almost  immaterial  foe,  who 
appeared  and  disappeared  as  by  the  wand  of  an  en- 
chanter, taught  from  immemorial  ages  in  the  ways 
of  the  woods,  finding  in  every  spreading  tree  a  for- 
tress, every  tree-trunk  a  half-human,  ever  sympa- 
thising friend,  using  the  prodigious  fertility  of  the 
forest  as  their  commissariat,  sharpened  in  every 
sense  to  an  almost  superhuman  acuteness  of  sight 
and  hearing.  The  Redmen  were  near  enough  to  the 
animal  kingdom  to  partake  of  its  finest  qualities  of 
sense,  qualities  acquired  by  thousands  of  years  of 
friction  and  contact  with  the  all-comprehending 
Mother  Nature  around,  while  their  inclusion  in  the 
kingdom  of  men  had,  through  the  same  thousands 


In  the  Tragical  Wood  95 

of  years,  wrought  out  a  wondrous  brightness  of 
intellect,  and  intelligence  of  a  kind  so  self -developed 
and  original  as  to  resemble  that  of  elves  and  goblins, 
swarming  out  of  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  with  un- 
natural knowledge. 

Braddock's  mistreatment  of  these  apparently  sim- 
ple people,  the  Iroquois,  the  most  highly  gifted  of  all 
American  Indians, — "  he  treated  us  like  dogs,"  as 
explained  one  of  their  number, — wrought  his  ruin. 

The  reverie  of  the  undying  forest  was  now  broken 
by  a  deathless  scene. 

"  I  cannot  describe  the  horrors  of  that  scene," 
wrote  Lieutenant  Leslie  of  the  44th,  three  weeks 
later,  "  no  pen  could  do  it.  The  yell  of  the  Indians 
is  fresh  on  my  ear,  and  the  terrific  sound  will  haunt 
me  to  the  hour  of  my  dissolution." 

This  yell  came  from  900  throats,  multiplied  to 
9000  or  perhaps  90,000,  by  the  sinister  reverbera- 
tion of  the  midsummer  wildwood,  whose  gruesome 
recesses  acted  as  sounding-boards,  and  shot  forth  a 
hundred  variations  of  the  harsh  and  thunderous 
nymph  Echo,  whose  silent  realm  had  been  invaded. 
It  seemed,  indeed,  as  if  the  wrath  of  the  great  god 
Pan  himself  had  been  roused  to  fury,  and  all  the 
powers  of  the  raging  underworld  of  myth  and  fairy 
had  suddenly  been  let  loose,  to  swarm  upward  in 
invisible  wrath  and  might  in  defence  of  their  forest 
children. 

The  trees  turned  to  pillars  of  flame;  the  depths 
of  the  sombre  Alleghanies  became  livid  with  smoke. 

A  thousand  gallant  Englishmen  and  Virginians 


96  George  Washington 

lay  like  stricken  deer,  pierced  with  bullets,  toma- 
hawked, scalped,  in  every  attitude  that  writhing 
agony  could  take,  blanched,  bloody,  lifeless,  strewn 
for  miles  in  scarlet  horror  along  the  road  which  had 
been  the  magnet  of  their  destruction,  a  road  which 
for  them  had  led  straight  into  the  jaws  of  death. 

Only  twenty-three  out  of  eighty-six  officers 
escaped  a  scene  which,  in  the  energy  of  its  mad 
despair,  might  beggar  the  powers  of  Edgar  Allan 
Poe  to  describe  in  another  "  Masque  of  the  Red 
Death."  Platoon  shot  down  platoon  in  the  blind 
frenzy  of  panic,  and  the  woods  sang  with  the  whirl- 
wind of  flying  bullets  that  murdered,  indiscrimi- 
nately, friend  and  foe.  Braddock,  like  Stonewall 
Jackson,  was  thought  by  some  to  have  been  shot  by 
one  of  his  own  men.  A  wild  rush  backward  through 
the  fatal  woods  was  made  by  the  three  hundred  or 
four  hundred  survivors,  while  Washington,  ill  and 
weakened  by  disease,  almost  heart-broken  in  mind, 
lingered  long  enough  to  bury  the  misguided  Brad- 
dock  in  the  road,  where  fugitive  feet  and  flying 
waggons  obliterated  every  trace  of  the  burial-place 
from  the  sight  of  the  vindictive  savages. 

But  the  craven  cowards  were  pursued  by  phantom 
fears.  No  Indian  followed.  Impelled  by  resistless 
terror,  the  remnant  fled  on  and  on,  the  wretched 
Dunbar  at  their  head,  and  hardly  stopped  till  they 
had  reached  Philadelphia;  while  Franklin  relates, 
in  a  most  touching  passage,  how  the  dying  Brad- 
dock  praised  the  brave  Virginians  almost  with  his 


In  the  Tragical  Wood  97 

last  breath,  and  expired  murmuring :  "  The  next 
time  we  shall  know  how  to  meet  them." 

Ages  before,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  Chris- 
tian era,  this  same  most  memorable  tragedy  had 
been  enacted  on  German  soil,  with  Roman  soldiers 
and  imperial  eagles  and  the  grandiose  might  of  the 
City  of  the  Seven  Hills  behind  it,  and  all  the  antique 
imperial  world  as  spectators.  A  grey-haired  Caesar, 
whose  exquisite  lineaments  have  come  down  in  the 
chiselled  beauty  of  the  Young  Augustus,  stood  in 
his  Roman  palace  and,  gazing  wistfully  towards 
Germany,  wrung  his  hands  and  cried :  "  O  Varus, 
Varus,  give  me  back  my  legions !  " 

For  the  legionaries  of  Rome,  advancing  incau- 
tiously into  the  awful  solitudes  of  the  Teutoburger 
Forest,  in  the  wildwoods  of  prehistoric  Germany, 
were  surrounded  and  annihilated  by  Arminius,  the 
champion  of  the  wild,  young,  fresh  "  Germany " 
that  had  grown  up,  like  the  valiant  Iroquois,  almost 
unnoticed  in  the  dense  forests  of  Westphalia,  and 
burst  down  on  the  Romans  with  the  fury  of  a  whirl- 
wind. 

"  O  Varus,  Varus,  give  me  back  my  legions !  " 

"  The  sea  washes  away  all  human  ills,"  sang 
Euripides,  pathetically,  ages  ago,  as  he  remembered 
what  it  had  obliterated  for  Hellas. 

The  Forest  is  also  a  Sea  beneath  which,  not  the 
navies  but  the  armies  of  the  world  have  sunk,  en- 
tombed— obliterated — forgotten. 

Out  of  the  agony  of  that  time,   four  letters  of 


98  George  Washington 

Washington  have  reached  us,  like  leaves  of  that 
fateful  wood  blown  to  us  by  the  feeble  breath  of 
the  dying.  They  give  us  the  most  authentic,  first- 
hand story  of  the  "  Battle  of  the  Monongahela  " 
as  he  calls  it,  and  deserve  quoting  in  their  fulness : 

To  GOVERNOR  DINWIDDIE 

"Fort  Cumberland,  18  July,  1755. 
"  HONBL.  SIR, 

"As  I  am  favored  with  an  opportunity,  I  should 
think  myself  inexcusable  was  I  to  omit  giving  you 
some  account  of  our  late  Engagement  with  the  French 
on  the  Monongahela,  the  Qth  instant. 

"  We  continued  our  march  from  Fort  Cumberland 
to  Frazier's  (which  is  within  7  miles  of  Duquesne) 
without  meeting  any  extraordinary  event,  having  only 
a  straggler  or  two  picked  up  by  the  French  Indians. 
When  we  came  to  this  place,  we  were  attacked  (very 
unexpectedly)  by  about  three  hundred  French  and 
Indians.  Our  numbers  consisted  of  about  Thirteen 
hundred  well  armed  men,  chiefly  Regulars,  who  were 
immediately  struck  with  such  an  inconceivable  panick, 
that  nothing  but  confusion  and  disobedience  of  orders 
prevailed  among  them.  The  officers,  in  general,  be- 
haved with  incomparable  bravery,  for  which  they 
greatly  suffered,  there  being  near  60  killed  and 
wounded — a  large  proportion,  out  of  the  number  we 
had! 

"  The  Virginia  companies  behaved  like  men  and 
died  like  soldiers ;  for  I  believe  out  of  three  companies 
that  were  on  the  ground  that  day  scarce  thirty  were 
left  alive.  Capt.  Peyroney  and  all  his  officers,  down 
to  a  corporal,  were  killed;  Captn.  Poison  had  almost 


In  the  Tragical  Wood  99 

as  hard  a  fate,  for  only  one  of  his  escaped.  In  short, 
the  dastardly  behaviour  of  the  Regular  troops  (so- 
called)  exposed  those  who  were  inclined  to  do  their 
duty  to  almost  certain  death ;  and,  at  length,  in  despite 
of  every  effort  to  the  contrary,  broke  and  ran  as  sheep 
before  hounds,  leaving  the  artillery,  ammunition,  pro- 
visions, baggage,  and,  in  short,  everything  a  prey  to 
the  enemy.  And  when  we  endeavoured  to  rally  them, 
in  hopes  of  regaining  the  ground  and  what  we  had 
left  upon  it,  it  was  with  as  little  success  as  if  we  had 
attempted  to  have  stopped  the  wild  bears  of  the  moun- 
tains, or  rivulets  with  our  feet;  for  they  would  break 
by,  in  despite  of  every  effort  that  could  be  made  to 
prevent  it. 

'  The  General  was  wounded  in  the  shoulder  and 
breast,  of  which  he  died  three  days  after;  his  two 
aids-de-camp  were  both  wounded,  but  are  in  a  fair 
way  of  recovery ;  Colo.  Burton  and  Sir  John  St.  Clair 
are  also  wounded,  and  I  hope  will  get  over  it;  Sir 
Peter  Halket,  with  many  other  brave  officers,  were 
killed  in  the  field.  It  is  supposed,  that  we  had  three 
hundred  or  more  killed  ;  about  that  number  we  brought 
off  wounded,  and  it  is  conjectured  (I  believe  with 
much  truth)  that  two  thirds  of  both  received  their 
shot  from  our  own  cowardly  Regulars,  who  gathered 
themselves  into  a  body,  contrary  to  orders,  ten  or 
twelve  deep,  would  then  level,  fire  and  shoot  down 
the  men  before  them. 

"  I  tremble  at  the  consequences  that  this  defeat  may 
have  upon  our  back  settlers,  who,  I  suppose,  will  all 
leave  their  habitations  unless  there  are  proper  meas- 
ures taken  for  their  security. 

"  Colo.  Dunbar,  who  commands  at  present,  intends, 


ioo  George  Washington 

as  soon  as  his  men  are  recruited  at  this  place,  to  con- 
tinue his  march  to  Philadelphia  for  winter  quarters: 
consequently  there  will  be  no  men  left  here,  unless  it 
is  the  shattered  remains  of  the  Virginia  troops,  who 
are  totally  inadequate  to  the  protection  of  the  fron- 
tiers." 1 

"To  JOHN  A.  WASHINGTON 

"  Fort  Cumberland,  18  July,  1755. 
"  DEAR  BROTHER, 

"As  I  have  heard,  since  my  arrival  at  this  place,  a 
circumstantial  account  of  my  death  and  dying  speech, 
I  take  this  early  opportunity  of  contradicting  the  first, 
and  of  assuring  you,  that  I  have  not  as  yet  composed 
the  latter.  But,  by  the  all-powerful  dispensations  of 
Providence,  I  have  been  protected  beyond  all  human 
probability  and  expectation ;  for  I  had  four  bullets 
through  my  coat,  and  two  horses  shot  under  me,  yet 
escaped  unhurt,  altho'  death  was  levelling  my  com- 
panions on  every  side  of  me! 

"  We  have  been  most  scandalously  beaten  by  a 
trifling  body  of  men,  but  fatigue  and  want  of  time 
will  prevent  me  from  giving  you  any  of  the  details, 
until  I  have  the  happiness  of  seeing  you  at  Mount 
Vernon,  which  I  now  most  ardently  wish  for,  since 
we  are  drove  in  thus  far.  A  weak  and  feeble  state  of 
health  obliges  me  to  halt  here  for  two  or  three  days, 
to  recover  a  little  strength,  that  I  may  thereby  be 
enabled  to  proceed  homewards  with  more  ease.  You 
may  expect  to  see  me  there  on  Saturday  or  Sun- 
day se'-night,  which  is  as  soon  as  I  can  well  be  down, 
as  I  shall  take  my  Bullskin  Plantations  in  my  way. 

-     ''Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  i,  p.  173 


In  the  Tragical  Wood          101 

Pray  give  my  compliments  to  all  my  friends.     I  am, 
dear  Jack,  your  most  affectionate  brother." 

"  To  ROBERT  JACKSON 

"  Mount  Vernon,  2  August,   1755. 
"  DEAR  SIR, 

"  I  must  acknowledge  you  had  great  reason  to  be 
terrified  with  the  first  accounts,  that  were  given  of 
our  unhappy  defeat;  and,  I  must  own,  I  was  not  a 
little  surprised  to  find,  that  Governor  Innes  was  the 
means  of  alarming  the  country  with  a  report  so  ex- 
traordinary, without  having  better  confirmation  of  the 
truth,  than  the  story  of  an  affrighted  wagoner! 

"It  is  true,  we  have  been  beaten,  shamefully  beaten, 
by  a  handful  of  men,  who  only  intended  to  molest  and 
disturb  our  march.  Victory  was  their  smallest  expec- 
tation. But  see  the  wondrous  works  of  Providence, 
the  uncertainty  of  human  things!  We,  but  a  few  mo- 
ments before,  believed  our  numbers  almost  equal  to 
the  Canadian  force;  they,  only  expected  to  annoy  us. 
Yet,  contrary  to  all  expectation  and  human  probabil- 
ity, and  even  to  the  common  course  of  things,  we  were 
totally  defeated,  sustained  the  loss  of  every  thing, 
which  they  have  got,  are  enriched  by  it,  and  accommo- 
dated by  them.  This,  as  you  observe,  must  be  an 
affecting  story  to  the  colony,  and  will,  no  doubt,  license 
the  tongues  of  people  to  censure  those,  whom  they 
think  most  blamable;  which,  by  the  by,  often  falls 
very  wrongfully.  I  join  very  heartily  with  you  in 
believing,  that  when  this  story  comes  to  be  related  in 
future  annals,  it  will  meet  with  unbelief  and  indigna- 
tion, for  had  I  not  been  witness  to  the  fact  on  that 
fatal  day,  I  should  scarce  have  given  credit  to  it  even 
now. 


IO2  George  Washing-ton 

"  Whenever  it  suits  you  to  come  into  Fairfax,  I 
hope  you  will  make  your  home  at  Mount  Vernon. 
Please  to  give  my  compliments  to  all  inquiring  friends. 
I  assure  you,  nothing  could  have  added  more  to  the 
satisfaction  of  my  safe  return,  than  hearing  of  the 
friendly  concern  that  has  been  expressed  on  my  sup- 
posed death.  I  am,  etc." 


GENERAL  ISRAEL  PUTNAM. 
From  the  painting  by  H.  I.  Thompson,  in  the  State  House,  Hartford,  Conn. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  WIDOW   CUSTIS 

"  She  loved  me  for  the  dangers  I  had  pass'd ; 
And  I  loved  her,  that  she  did  pity  them. 
This  only  is  the  witchcraft  I  have  used ; 
Here  comes  the  lady,  let  her  witness  it." 

OTHELLO. 

NEVER  had  History  indeed  rung  down  the  cur- 
tain on  a  more  dismal  tragedy,  yet  no  histo- 
rian has  failed  to  plant  a  requiem  willow  over  the 
grave  of  the  unfortunate  Braddock.  For  a  moment 
he  appears  jauntily  on  the  edge  of  the  Eastern 
horizon,  in  January,  1755,  leaps  lightly  over  the 
peccant  Atlantic,  as  if  scorning  to  touch  it  with 
loitering  feet,  gathers  a  brief  and  brilliant  haze  of 
glory  about  himself  in  garrulous  Virginia,  as  he 
boastfully  plans  his  campaign,  stalks  up  and  down 
the  narrow  colonial  stage  like  a  scarlet  flamingo, 
then  starts  into  the  inexorable  woods,  never  to 
return.  Oblivion,  the  tireless  swallower  of  mush- 
room reputations,  has  tried  in  vain  to  swallow  his; 
it  sticks  in  the  throat  of  Time,  a  gigantic  morsel  of 
folly  that  cannot  be  swallowed. 

In  this  prelude  to  his  life's  work,  Washington 
suffered  a  second  shock  of  humiliation,  which  was 
to  clothe  his  nerves  in  steel  against  all  possible 
disaster,  and  invest  him,  as  the  "  spirit-protected 

103 


104  George  Washington 

man,"  in  a  breastplate  which  no  after-misfortune 
could  penetrate. 

Franklin  sagaciously  remarked,  that  Braddock's 
defeat  dealt  a  deadly  blow  at  the  reputations  of  the 
British  regulars  for  invincible  prowess,  and  opened 
the  eyes  of  the  Americans  to  the  weakness  of  the 
contention  that  they  were  invincible. 

The  spot  where  Siegfried  was  vulnerable  had 
been  discovered! 

Meanwhile,  Washington  had  strong  and  appre- 
ciative friends  among  the  burgesses,  who  soon  un- 
derstood the  situation,  and  secured  for  him  the  ap- 
pointment of  colonel  of  the  sixteen  new  companies 
to  be  raised,  together  with  a  grant  of  £40,000  for 
their  maintenance,  and  a  purse  of  remuneration  for 
each  officer  and  private  in  the  late  unfortunate  ex- 
pedition. He  himself  received  £300.  Recruiting 
offices  were  opened  at  Fredericksburg,  Alexandria, 
and  Winchester,  and  the  momentary  stupor  and 
amazement  of  the  colony  began  to  clear  away. 

It  would  be  a  matter  of  almost  infinite,  yet  triv- 
ial and  distressing,  detail,  to  follow  Washington 
in  his  voluminous  correspondence  with  Governor 
Dinwiddie,  Speaker  Robinson,  and  Lord  Loudon 
during  the  next  two  or  three  years.  The  endless 
small  vexations  of  frontier  life — drunkenness  of 
officers,  desertions  of  troops,  insufficiency  of  pay 
and  of  ammunition,  passionate  appeals  to  the  Gov- 
ernor and  burgesses  for  help,  for  redress  of  griev- 
ances, for  even  bread  and  meat  and  powder — fill 
these  letters,  which  are  written  with  a  sustained 


The  Widow  Custis  105 

clearness,  cogency,  and  vigour,  that  reflect  high 
credit  on  Washington  as  a  master  of  direct  and 
simple  English.  At  this  time,  he  had  no  secretary: 
all  these  letters  are  presumably  autographic,  and 
all  show  a  circumstantial  mastery  of  every  detail  of 
the  service.  He  was,  truly,  fast  becoming  profi- 
cient in  that  forest  -  and  -  frontier  university,  in 
which  other  great  Americans  were  to  rival  or  to 
follow  him — General  Israel  Putnam,  Sir  William 
Johnson,  General  Sam  Houston,  Lewis,  Clark, 
Daniel  Morgan,  and  a  hundred  frontier-bred  heroes 
of  the  border  "  in  the  brave  old  days  of  '76."  These 
letters  read  with  a  fluency  and  power,  in  which  the 
heart-throbs  of  the  young  commander — now  twenty- 
four — are  still  distinguishable. 

In  May,  1756,  war  was  formally  declared  against 
France,  whose  people  Washington,  in  one  of  these 
letters — for  once  casting  off  his  habitual  reserve 
— denounces  as  "  barbarians."  Their  barbarous 
scalping-parties  turned  the  beautiful  Vale  of  the 
Shenandoah,  the  upper  reaches  of  the  Potomac,  the 
luxuriant  mountains  of  western  Pennsylvania,  and 
the  fern-  and  laurel-clad  gorges  of  the  Alleghanies 
into  a  pandemonium  of  blood,  starvation,  and 
murder.  One.  decisive  blow  struck  at  Fort  Du- 
quesne,  now  nearly  deserted,  in  consequence  of  the 
withdrawal  of  its  garrison  for  the  defence  of  Fort 
Niagara  and  Crown  Point,  would  have  brought 
the  frightful  turmoil  to  an  end.  But  a  civilian 
agent  of  the  Crown — one  Atkin — had  been  put 
over  Washington's  head.  Lord  Loudon  preferred 


106  George  Washington 

to  direct  operations  against  the  Indians  from  Phil- 
adelphia and  New  York,  and  things  in  Virginia 
were  left  abundantly  to  themselves. 

The  paper  on  which  Washington  writes  fairly 
burns  with  his  supplications,  prayers,  entreaties, 
almost  tears,  to  Dinwiddie  for  help,  for  substantial 
recognition  of  the  services  of  the  colonial  militia, 
for  the  "  tools  "  to  erect  the  chain  of  forts,  now 
contemplated,  along  a  frontier  three  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  in  length,  almost  daily  punctuated  with 
funeral  pyres,  murdering  parties,  conflagrations, 
pillaging,  cruelties  and  tortures  of  every  description. 

Even  at  this  early  period,  Washington's  abhor- 
rence of  the  common  military  vices  of  profanity  and 
gambling  crops  out  in  letters  like  the  following : 

"  This  extract  from  his  Orderly  Book,  issued  in 
general  orders  by  the  Commander  two  days  after  he 
reached  Fort  Cumberland,  will  show  that  he  enforced 
rigid  rules  of  discipline : — 

"  Col.  Washington  has  observed,  that  the  men  of 
his  regiment  are  very  profane  and  reprobate.  He 
takes  this  opportunity  of  informing  them  of  his  great 
displeasure  at  such  practices,  and  assures  them,  if 
they  do  not  leave  them  off,  they  shall  be  severely  pun- 
ished. The  officers  are  desired,  if  they  hear  any  man 
swear,  or  make  use  of  an  oath  or  execration,  to  order 
the  offender  twenty-five  lashes  immediately,  without 
a  court-martial.  For  the  second  offence,  they  will  be 
more  severely  punished."  * 

1  Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  i,  p.  296,  note. 


The  Widow  Custis  107 

"  To  THE  SPEAKER  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  BURGESSES 

"  December,  1756. 
"  DEAR  SIR, 

"  It  gave  me  infinite  concern  to  hear  by  several  let- 
ters, that  the  Assembly  are  incensed  against  the  Vir- 
ginia Regiment;  and  think  they  have  cause  to  accuse 
the  officers  of  all  inordinate  vices ;  but  more  espe- 
cially of  drunkenness  and  profanity !  How  far  any 
one  individual  may  have  subjected  himself  to  such  re- 
flections, I  will  not  pretend  to  determine,  but  this  I 
am  certain  of ;  and  can  with  the  highest  safety  call  my 
conscience,  my  God!  and  (what  I  suppose  will  still 
be  a  more  demonstrable  proof,  at  least  in  the  eye  of 
the  World)  the  Orders  and  Instructions  which  I  have 
given,  to  evince  the  purity  of  my  own  intentions  and 
to  show  on  the  one  hand,  that  my  incessant  endeav- 
ours have  been  directed  to  discountenance  Gaming, 
drinking,  swearing,  and  other  vices,  with  which  all 
camps  too  much  abound:  while  on  the  other,  I  have 
used  every  expedient  to  inspire  a  laudable  emulation 
in  the  officers,  and  an  unerring  exercise  of  Duty  in 
the  Soldiers.  How  far  I  may  have  mistaken  the 
means  to  attain  so  salutary  an  end  behooves  not  me 
to  determine :  But  this  I  presume  to  say,  that  a  man's 
intentions  should  be  allowed  in  some  respects  to  plead 
for  his  actions.  I  have  been  more  explicit  Sir,  on 
this  head  than  I  otherwise  shou'd,  because  I  find  that 
my  own  character  must  of  necessity  be  involved  in 
the  general  censure,  for  which  reason  I  can  not  help 
observing,  that  if  the  country  think  they  have  cause 
to  condemn  my  conduct,  and  have  a  person  in  view 
that  will  act;  that  he  may  do.  But  who  will  endeav- 
our to  act  more  for  her  Interests  than  I  have  done? 


io8  George  Washington 

It  will  give  me  the  greatest  pleasure  to  resign  a  com- 
mand which  I  solemnly  declare  I  accepted  against  my 
will."  x 

Out  of  the  passion  and  terror  of  this  broken  time 
the  following  letter  glows  with  a  sullen  fire : 

"  To  GOVERNOR  DINWIDDIE 

"Winchester,  22  April,  1756. 
"  HONBLE.  SIR, 

"This  encloses  several  letters,  and  the  minutes  of 
a  council  of  war,  which  was  held  upon  the  receipt  of 
them.  Your  Honour  may  see  to  what  unhappy  straits 
the  distressed  inhabitants  as  well  as  I,  am  reduced. 
I  am  too  little  acquainted,  Sir,  with  pathetic  language, 
to  attempt  a  description  of  the  people's  distresses, 
though  I  have  a  generous  soul,  sensible  of  wrongs, 
and  swelling  for  redress.  But  what  can  I  do?  If 
bleeding,  dying!  would  glut  their  insatiate  revenge, 
I  would  be  a  willing  offering  to  savage  fury,  and  die 
by  inches  to  save  a  people !  I  see  their  situation,  know 
their  danger,  and  participate  their  sufferings,  without 
having  it  in  my  power  to  give  them  further  relief, 
than  uncertain  promises.  In  short,  I  see  inevitable 
destruction  in  so  clear  a  light,  that,  unless  vigorous 
measures  are  taken  by  the  Assembly,  and  speedy  as- 
sistance sent  from  below,  the  poor  inhabitants  that 
are  now  in  forts,  must  unavoidably  fall,  while  the 
remainder  of  the  country  are  flying  before  the  barba- 
rous foe.  In  fine,  the  melancholy  situation  of  the 
people,  the  little  prospect  of  assistance,  the  gross  and 
scandalous  abuses  cast  upon  the  officers  in  general, 

JFord,   Writings  of  George   Washington,  vol.  i,  pp.  406-407. 


The  Widow  Custis  109 

which  is  reflecting  upon  me  in  particular,  for  suffer- 
ing misconducts  of  such  extraordinary  kinds,  and  the 
distant  prospects,  if  any,  that  I  can  see,  of  gaining 
honor  and  reputation  in  the  service,  are  motives  which 
cause  me  to  lament  the  hour,  that  gave  me  a  com- 
mission, and  would  induce  me,  at  any  other  time  than 
this  of  imminent  danger,  to  resign  without  one  hesi- 
tating moment,  a  command,  which  I  never  expect  to 
reap  either  honor  or  benefit  from;  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, have  almost  an  absolute  certainty  of  incurring 
displeasure  below,  while  the  murder  of  poor  innocent 
babes  and  helpless  families  may  be  laid  to  my  account 
here! 

"  The  supplicating  tears  of  the  women,  and  moving 
petitions  from  the  men,  melt  me  into  such  deadly 
sorrow,  that  I  solemnly  declare,  if  I  know  my  own 
mind,  I  could  offer  myself  a  willing  sacrifice  to  the 
butchering  enemy,  provided  that  would  contribute  to 
the  people's  ease."  * 

"  The  melancholy  condition  of  our  distressed 
frontier,"  is  the  burden  of  these  mid-century  letters, 
when  Virginia  on  the  west  was  girdled  with  fire, 
"  the  woods  alive  with  Indians  "  writes  the  Colonel, 
"  prowling  like  wolves  " ;  "  Indians  alone  are  a 
match  for  Indians  " ;  500  of  them  enlisted  by  the 
Americans  would  be  equal  to  5000  regulars.  The 
devilish  atrocities  of  the  hour  forced  the  Virginia 
Assembly  to  offer  from  fifteen  to  thirty  pounds  for 
each  tawny  scalp  sent  in  to  a  frontier  camp. 

Human  foxes,  squirrels,  panthers,  these  wood- 
land creatures,  to  parallel  whom,  one  is  thrown  upon 

»    1Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  i,  p.  248. 


iio  George  Washington 

the  antique  myth- world  of  Greece,  had  been  sharp- 
ened by  immemorial  familiarity  with  the  woods  into 
almost  superhuman  intelligence,  endowed  with  the 
profoundest  knowledge  of  woodcraft,  dusky  Mer- 
curys  of  the  forest  with  winged  feet,  web-footed 
when  it  came  to  crossing  water,  protectively  coloured 
among  the  indistinguishable  shades  of  glade  and 
gorge,  the  crowning  presence  in  a  vast  sylvan  re- 
gion, boundless  as  the  continent  itself,  in  which  they 
seemed  to  occupy  the  apex  of  a  fantastic  animal 
and  vegetable  world,  and  to  rule  over  it  supremely, 
by  reason  both  of  first  possession  and  instinctive 
cunning. 

Fanciful  as  Undine,  in  the  way  in  which  they 
appeared  and  disappeared  in  the  ocean  of  leaves, 
their  combinations  and  dissolutions,  alliances  and 
disintegrations,  dependent  upon  a  changeful  world 
of  symbolisms,  in  which  belts  of  wampum  and 
calumets  of  peace,  scalps  and  hatchets  played  a 
strange  and  solemn  part,  were  hardly  more  binding 
than  alliances  of  wasps,  or  clouds  of  birds,  as  they 
appear  to  us  in  the  comedies  of  Aristophanes;  and 
yet,  so  formidable  were  they  even  in  their  momen- 
tary harmonies,  that  the  literature  of  early  America 
is  fairly  resonant  with  their  presence,  and  the  white 
man  was  forced  to  confess  that,  here  in  the  new 
world,  he  had  come  upon  a  new  species,  self-devel- 
oped, self -poised,  owing  little  to  the  white  man,  bor- 
rowing less  from  him  except  his  vices,  armies  of 
"  brownies  "  who  rose  from  their  subterranean  re- 
cesses without  warning,  inflicted  a  deadly  blow,  and 


The  Widow  Custis  1 1 1 

then  melted  like  the  mist  into  the  dark  and  danger- 
ous mountains. 

Washington  clearly  understood  the  nature  of 
these  antagonists,  and  his  letters  are  full  of  refer- 
ences to  their  wily  and  treacherous  ways. 

The  Indians  on  their  side  faithfully  appreciated 
his  insight,  by  dubbing  him  in  their  tongue,  "  Cono- 
tocarius,"  a  "  Destroyer  of  Cities,"  a  name  which 
had  been  given  in  earlier  times  to  his  ancestor, 
Colonel  John  Washington  of  the  Northern  Neck. 

"  Washington,"  writes  Colonel  Fairfax  at  this 
time,  "  is  the  toast  of  every  table  " ;  and  Dinwiddie, 
corresponding  with  General  Abercrombie  in  Eng- 
land, went  into  particulars : 

"  As  we  are  told  the  Earl  of  Loudon  is  to  raise 
three  regiments  on  this  continent,  on  the  British  es- 
tablishment, I  dearn't  venture  to  trouble  him  imme- 
diately on  his  arrival  with  any  recommendations;  but, 
good  Sir,  give  me  leave  to  pray  your  interest  with 
his  Lordship  in  favor  of  Colonel  George  Washington, 
who,  I  will  venture  to  say,  is  a  very  deserving  gentle- 
man, and  has  from  the  beginning  commanded  the 
forces  of  this  dominion.  General  Braddock  had  so 
high  an  esteem  for  his  merit,  that  he  made  him  one 
of  his  aid-de-camps,  and,  if  he  had  survived,  I  believe 
he  would  have  provided  handsomely  for  him  in  the 
regulars.  He  is  a  person  much  beloved  here,  and  he 
has  gone  through  many  hardships  in  the  service,  and 
I  really  think  he  has  great  merit,  and  believe  he  can 
raise  more  men  here,  than  any  one  present  that  I 
know.  If  his  Lordship  will  be  so  kind  as  to  promote 


1 1 2  George  Washington 

him    in   the    British    establishment,    I   think   he    will 
answer  my  recommendation."  1 

About  the  same  time,  Dinwiddie  sent  an  interest- 
ing census  of  Virginia  to  the  London  Board  of 
Trade,  in  which  he  stated  that  the  population  was 
about  300,000,  including  120,000  blacks.  Of  this 
number,  35,000  were  subject  to  militia  duty,  or  a 
payment  of  ten  pounds  exemption  tax;  and  yet  so 
great  was  the  dearth  of  men,  or  the  antagonism  to 
frontier  service,  that  the  one  cry  of  Washington's 
letters  now,  piercing  through  his  other  cries  for 
meat,  money,  bread,  powder,  is  "  men,"  "  men," 
"  men." 

In  January,  1758,  to  the  relief  of  all  apparently, 
Dinwiddie  departed  for  London,  pursued  by  the  fol- 
lowing benediction  of  Speaker  Robinson  in  a  private 
letter  to  Washington : 

"  We  have  not  yet  heard  who  is  to  succeed  him  [Din- 
widdie]. God  grant  it  may  be  somebody  better  ac- 
quainted with  the  unhappy  business  we  have  in  hand, 
and  who,  by  his  conduct  and  counsel,  may  dispel  the 
cloud  now  hanging  over  this  distressed  country.  Till 
that  event,  I  beg,  my  dear  friend,  that  you  will  bear, 
so  far  as  a  man  of  honor  ought,  the  discouragements 
and  slights  you  have  too  often  met  with,  and  continue 
to  serve  your  country,  as  I  am  convinced  you  have 
always  hitherto  done,  in  the  best  manner  you  can  with 
the  small  assistance  afforded  you."  2 

1  Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  i,  p.  284,  note. 
3  Ibid.,  p.  510,  note. 


The  Widow  Custis  113 

Two  years  and  a  half  had  now  passed  since  that 
mournful  midsummer  of  1755,  when  Braddock, 
with  his  1300  noble  fellows,  had  started  for  that 
"  hole  of  barbarians,"  Fort  Duquesne,  as  Washing- 
ton called  it,  and,  in  the  funereal  wood,  still  lay, 
doubtless,  relics  of  the  1000  carcases  barbarously 
left  there,  after  Washington  had  personally  read 
the  majestic  burial  service  of  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  over  his  dead  chief;  and  still  things  wagged 
on  in  that  endless,  beguiling,  inconsequent,  colonial 
way,  which  never  seemed  to  bring  anything  to  an 
end,  never  ended  in  real  peace  or  real  war,  a  skir- 
mishing, scared,  witless,  toothless  time,  without 
teeth  or  talons  to  clutch  any  policy,  hot  or  cold, 
absolutely  inane  in  its  linked  listlessness  and  futility 
long  drawn  out. 

Washington,  endowed  originally  with  a  splendid 
constitution,  inured  to  hardships  by  innumerable 
fatigues  and  privations,  nerve-proof  against  criti- 
cism, insinuation,  even  the  scribbling  fluency  of 
Dinwiddie, — at  last  unnerved,  Washington  fell  dan- 
gerously ill  of  dysentery  and  camp-fever,  the  seeds 
of  which  had  sullenly  lurked  in  his  system  since  he 
had  been  borne  in  a  litter,  just  before  Braddock's 
defeat. 

For  four  months  he  hung  between  life  and  death 
at  Mount  Vernon,  whither  he  had  gone  for  con- 
valescence; and  here,  or  not  far  from  here,  in  a 
little  while,  he  was  to  experience  one  of  those  great 
changes  in  fortune  which  come  to  men  of  his  class 
and  character  only  once  in  a  lifetime. 


ii4  George  Washington 

All  of  a  sudden  out  of  the  gloom  and  anguish  of 
these  perturbed  times,  without  previous  warning, 
falls  the  following  note,  as  delicately  thrilling  in  its 
way  as  one  of  those  musical  notes  that  flow  spon- 
taneously from  the  throat  of  Spring : 

"To  MRS.  MARTHA  CUSTIS 

"  July  20,  1758. 

"  We  have  begun  our  march  for  the  Ohio.  A 
courier  is  starting  for  Williamsburg,  and  I  embrace 
the  opportunity  to  send  a  few  words  to  one  whose 
life  is  now  inseparable  from  mine.  Since  that  happy 
hour  when  we  made  our  pledges  to  each  other,  my 
thoughts  have  been  continually  going  to  you  as 
another  Self.  That  an  all-powerful  Providence  may 
keep  us  both  in  safety  is  the  prayer  of  your  ever  faith- 
ful and  affectionate  friend."  * 

The  strong,  controlled  passion  of  a  soul  which 
strove  in  vain  to  spend  itself  on  men  and  affairs, 
now,  at  twenty-six,  turned  its  ardour  towards  a 
lovely  woman  who  was,  like  the  gallant  colonel  him- 
self, a  "  consummate  flower "  of  the  Virginia 
planter  commonwealth.  One  cannot  imagine  this 
stately  young  warrior  selecting  for  himself,  out  of 
that  wealth  of  jewelled  women  around  him,  one  ra- 
diantly beautiful,  or  markedly  intellectual,  or  pun- 
gent, airy,  witty — a  Ninon,  a  Lady  Mary,  or  a  De 
Stael — but  simply  a  lovely,  Virginia  woman  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  rich  in  the  possession  of  all  the 
homelike  and  housewifely  charms,  rich  in  the  heart 

'Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  ii,  p.  53. 


The  Widow  Custis  115 

and  soul,  rather  than  in  the  intellect  and  understand- 
ing, an  ideal  of  the  gentler  womanhood  that  pre- 
ceded the  era  of  the  Amazon,  and  consecrated  itself 
altogether  to  the  sacred  offices  of  friendship. 

Of  such  was  Martha  Dandridge. 

She  was  a  perfect  (or,  if  you  will,  an  imperfect) 
type  of  that  matronly  Virginian  woman,  of  whom 
suggestive  images  hung  in  every  ripening  fruit- 
orchard  of  the  commonwealth ;  there  was  no  savour 
of  the  nymph  or  the  milkmaid,  of  the  Lady  Godiva, 
or  of  the  impassioned  Chimene  species  about  her. 
She  had  grown  up  in  that  old  Virginia,  gracious, 
charming,  high-spirited,  without  the  "  grand  air  "  of 
the  Evelyn  Byrds,  or  the  ladies  that  cast  ineffable 
glances  from  the  canvases  of  Lely  or  Sir  Godfrey, 
yet  mistress  of  far  more  than  merely  this:  faithful 
to  the  daily  task,  tenacious  as  De  Sevigne  to  a 
friendship  once  formed,  it  is  perhaps  fortunate  that 
she,  of  all  the  scribbling  women  then  living,  scrib- 
bled least  of  what  lay  on  her  breast,  and  has  floated 
on  down  to  us  a  benign  presence,  a  perfume,  a  per- 
fect memory,  rather  than  an  impassioned  Heloise, 
over  whom  generations  have  wept.  Just  the  wife 
for  Washington,  one  cannot  help  thinking,  for  the 
strenuous  young  man  of  action,  the  hero  absorbed 
by  a  thousand  struggles,  the  dreamer  of  a  thousand 
dreams  for  King  and  commonwealth,  the  incarna- 
tion of  an  energy  that  soon  realised  itself  on  a  hun- 
dred fields,  yet  needed  nothing  so  much  as  a  beloved 
companion  of  his  heart  to  share  his  glories  and  his 


ii6  George  Washington 

dangers,  his  secret  thoughts  and  his  most  sacred 
confidences. 

The  union  of  George  and  Martha  Washington 
was,  indeed,  like  that  marriage  of  perfect  words  to 
noble  music,  so  melodiously  sung  by  the  laureate  of 
a  later  generation. 

She  was  a  sweet,  sane,  whole-souled,  wholesome 
Virginia  lady,  skilled  in  the  gracious  household 
accomplishments  of  the  time,  fond  of  all  the  inno- 
cent gaieties  and  amusements  fashionable  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  yet  a  slave  to  none,  wise  in  the 
counsels  of  the  household,  conscious  of  her  lofty 
position,  yet  never  presuming  upon  it,  an  early  riser, 
an  indefatigable  tricoteuse  when  the  needs  of  the 
Revolutionary  soldiers  became  known,  no  saint  or 
St.  Cecilia  of  the  harpsichord,  but  a  simple,  loving, 
high-bred,  faithful  woman,  who  in  her  span  of 
seventy-one  years  lived  to  be  twice  a  widow.  She 
was  from  May  to  February  older  than  Washington, 
while  Colonel  Daniel  Parke  Custis,  her  first  hus- 
band, was  twenty  years  older  than  herself.  Four 
children — Martha,  Daniel,  John  Parke,  and  a  girl 
dying  in  infancy — were  the  fruit  of  the  Custis  union, 
while,  in  an  oft  quoted  epigram,  "  Providence  denied 
Washington  children  that  he  might  be  the  father  of 
the  whole  country." 

This  distant  corner  of  the  English  dominions 
then  suffered  a  dearth  of  teachers  for  women,  yet 
Virginia  was  at  this  very  time  full  of  the  women 
who  became  mothers  of  the  famous  statesmen, 
publicists,  judges,  generals,  and  governors  of  the 


The  Widow  Custis  117 

commonwealth  during  the  Revolution,  women 
whose  potential  genius  was  as  great  as  that  of 
the  women  of  Greece,  in  the  age  that  preceded  the 
golden  cycle  of  Pericles. 

Ten  years  lay  between  Martha  Dandridge's  two 
marriages :  at  seventeen  she  had  become  the  bride 
of  Daniel  Parke  Custis,  who  was  thirty-seven;  at 
twenty-six  when  she  had  been  but  a  few  months  a 
widow,  George  Washington  claimed  her  as  his 
bride. 

Her  grandson,  two  generations  later,  wrote  the 
following  pretty  story  of  the  courtship: 

"It  was  in  1758,  that  an  officer,  attired  in  a  mili- 
tary undress,  and  attended  by  a  body-servant,  tall 
and  militaire  as  his  chief,  crossed  the  ferry  called  Wil- 
liams's,  over  the  Pamunkey,  a  branch  of  the  York 
River.  On  the  boat  touching  the  southern  or  New 
Kent  side,  the  soldier's  progress  was  arrested  by  one 
of  those  personages,  who  give  the  beau  ideal  of  the 
Virginia  gentleman  of  the  old  regime,  the  very  soul 
of  kindness  and  hospitality.  It  was  in  vain  the  sol- 
dier urged  his  business  at  Williamsburg,  important 
communications  to  the  Governor,  etc.  Mr.  Chamber- 
lay  ne,  on  whose  domain  the  militaire  had  just  landed, 
would  hear  of  no  excuse.  Colonel  Washington  (for 
the  soldier  was  he)  was  a  name  and  character  so 
dear  to  all  the  Virginians,  that  his  passing  by  one  of 
the  old  castles  of  the  commonwealth,  without  calling 
and  partaking  of  the  hospitalities  of  the  host,  was  en- 
tirely out  of  the  question.  The  colonel,  however,  did 
not  surrender  at  discretion,  but  stoutly  maintained 
his  ground,  till  Chamberlayne  bringing  up  his  reserve, 


u8  George  Washington 

in  the  intimation  that  he  would  introduce  his  friend 
to  a  young  and  charming  widow,  then  beneath  his 
roof,  the  soldier  capitulated,  on  condition  that  he 
should  dine,  '  only  dine/  and  then,  by  pressing  his 
charger  and  borrowing  of  the  night,  he  would  reach 
Williamsburg  before  his  excellency  could  shake  off 
his  morning  slumbers.  Orders  were  accordingly  is- 
sued to  Bishop,  the  Colonel's  body-servant  and  faith- 
ful follower,  who,  together  with  the  fine  English 
charger,  had  been  bequeathed  by  the  dying  Braddock 
to  Major  Washington,  on  the  famed  and  fatal  field 
of  the  Monongahela.  Bishop,  bred  in  the  school  of 
European  discipline,  raised  his  hand  to  his  cap,  as 
much  as  to  say,  '  Your  honour's  orders  shall  be 
obeyed.' 

"  The  Colonel  now  proceeded  to  the  mansion,  and 
was  introduced  to  various  guests  (for  when  was  a 
Virginian  domicile  of  the  olden  time  without  guests?), 
and  above  all,  to  the  charming  widow.  Tradition  re- 
lates that  they  were  mutually  pleased  on  this  their  first 
interview,  nor  is  it  remarkable;  they  were  of  an  age 
when  impressions  are  strongest.  The  lady  was  fair 
to  behold,  of  fascinating  manners,  and  splendidly  en- 
dowed with  wordly  benefits.  The  hero,  fresh  from  his 
early  fields,  redolent  of  fame,  and  with  a  form  on 
which  '  every  god  did  seem  to  set  his  seal,  to  give  the 
world  assurance  of  a  man.' 

"  The  morning  passed  pleasantly  away.  Evening 
came,  with  Bishop,  true  to  his  orders  and  firm  at  his 
post,  holding  his  favorite  charger  with  one  hand,  while 
the  other  was  waiting  to  offer  the  ready  stirrup.  The 
sun  sank  in  the  horizon,  and  yet  the  Colonel  appeared 
not.  And  then  the  old  soldier  marvelled  at  his  chief's 


The  Widow  Custis  119 

delay.  '  'Twas  strange,  'twas  passing  strange ' — 
surely  he  was  not  wont  to  be  a  single  moment  behind 
his  appointments,  for  he  was  the  most  punctual  of  all 
men.  Meantime,  the  host  enjoyed  the  scene  of  the 
veteran  on  duty  at  the  gate,  while  the  Colonel  was  so 
agreeably  employed  in  the  parlor;  and  proclaiming 
that  no  guest  ever  left  his  house  after  sunset,  his  mili- 
tary visitor  was,  without  much  difficulty,  persuaded 
to  order  Bishop  to  put  up  the  horses  for  the  night. 
The  sun  rode  high  in  the  heavens  the  ensuing  day, 
when  the  enamored  soldier  pressed  with  his  spur  his 
charger's  side,  and  speeded  on  his  way  to  the  seat 
of  government,  where,  having  despatched  his  public 
business,  he  retraced  his  steps,  and,  at  the  White 
House,  the  engagement  took  place,  with  preparations 
for  the  marriage. 

"  And  much  hath  the  biographer  heard  of  that  mar- 
riage, from  gray-haired  domestics,  who  waited  at  the 
board  where  love  made  the  feast  and  Washington  was 
the  guest.  And  rare  and  high  was  the  revelry,  at  that 
palmy  period  of  Virginia's  festal  age;  for  many  were 
gathered  to  that  marriage,  of  the  good,  the  great,  the 
gifted,  and  the  gay,  while  Virginia,  with  joyous  ac- 
clamation hailed  in  her  youthful  hero  a  prosperous 
and  happy  bridegroom. 

" '  And  so  you  remember  when  Colonel  Washing- 
ton came  a-courting  of  your  mistress  ? '  said  the  biog- 
rapher to  old  Cully,  in  his  hundreth  year.  'Ay, 
master,  that  7  do,'  replied  this  ancient  family  servant, 
who  had  lived  to  see  five  generations ;  '  great  times, 
sir,  great  times !  Shall  never  see  the  like  again ! '  — 
'  And  Washington  looked  something  like  a  man,  a 
proper  man  ;  hey,  Cully  ?  ' — '  Never  see'd  the  like,  sir ; 


I2O  George  Washington 

never  the  likes  of  him,  tho'  I  have  seen  many  in  my 
day;  so  tall,  so  straight!  and  then  he  sat  a  horse  and 
rode  with  such  an  air!  Ah,  sir;  he  was  like  no  one 
else!  Many  of  the  grandest  gentlemen,  in  their  gold 
lace,  were  at  the  wedding,  but  none  looked  like  the 
man  himself ! '  Strong,  indeed,  must  have  been  the 
impressions  which  the  person  and  manner  of  Wash- 
ington made  upon  the  rude,  '  untutored  mind '  of  this 
poor  negro,  since  the  lapse  of  three  quarters  of  a 
century  had  not  sufficed  to  efface  them."  1 

This  poetic  ceremony  took  place,  in  all  probability, 
at  old  St.  Peter's  Church,  near  the  "  White  House," 
residence  of  Mrs.  Custis— possibly  at  the  fine  old 
colonial  house  itself  '(accounts  vary). 

A  little  more  than  a  century  later,  another  noble 
Federal  soldier,  commander  of  a  mighty  host  then 
slowly  enveloping  Richmond,  knelt  at  the  altar  of 
this  venerable  old  forest  church,  and  prayed  most 
fervently  that  he,  like  Washington  a  hundred  years 
before,  might  become  the  saviour  of  his  distracted 
country ! 2 

It  was  a  curious  coincidence  that  the  surrender 
of  Fort  Duquesne  and  of  the  fair  and  charming 
widow  took  place  almost  simultaneously. 

Of  her  personal  characteristics  her  grandson 
writes : 

"In  person,  Mrs.  Washington  was  well-formed, 
and  somewhat  below  the  middle  size.  To  judge  from 

*G.  W.  P.  Custis,  Recollections  and  Private  Memoirs  of 
Washington,  p.  501. 

*  Gen.  G.  B.  McClellan,  Diary. 


The  Widow  Custis  121 

her  portrait  at  Arlington  House,  painted  by  Wool- 
aston,  in  1757,  when  she  was  in  the  bloom  of  life,  she 
must  at  that  period  have  been  eminently  handsome. 
In  her  dress,  though  plain,  she  was  so  scrupulously 
neat,  that  ladies  have  often  wondered  how  Mrs.  Wash- 
ington could  wear  a  gown  for  a  week,  go  through  her 
kitchen  and  laundries,  and  all  the  varieties  of  places 
in  the  routine  of  domestic  management,  and  yet  the 
gown  retained  its  snow-like  whiteness,  unsullied  by 
even  a  single  speck."  1 

"  Mrs.  Washington  was  an  uncommon  early  riser, 
leaving  her  pillow  at  day-dawn  at  all  seasons  of  the 
year,  and  becoming  at  once  actively  engaged  in  her 
household  duties.  After  breakfast  she  retired  for  an 
hour  to  her  chamber,  which  hour  was  spent  in  prayer 
and  reading  the  Holy  Scriptures,  a  practice  that  she 
never  omitted  during  half  a  century  of  her  varied 
life."  2 

"  Mrs.  Carrington,  wife  of  Colonel  Edward  Car- 
rington,  who,  with  her  husband,  visited  the  family  at 
Mount  Vernon  a  little  while  before  General  Wash- 
ington's death,  wrote  to  her  sister  as  follows,  concern- 
ing Mrs.  Washington: 

'  Let  us  repair  to  the  old  lady's  room,  which  is  pre- 
cisely in  the  style  of  our  good  old  aunt's — that  is  to 
say,  nicely  fixed  for  all  sorts  of  work.  On  one  side 
sits  the  chambermaid,  with  her  knitting;  on  the  other, 
a  little  colored  pet,  learning  to  sew.  An  old  decent 
woman  is  there,  with  her  table  and  shears,  cutting 
out  the  negroes'  winter  clothes,  while  the  good  old 

1 G.  W.  P.  Custis,  Recollections  and  Private  Memoirs  of 
Washington,  p.  514. 


122  George  Washington 

lady  directs  them  all,  incessantly  knitting  herself.  She 
points  out  to  me  several  pair  of  nice  colored  stockings 
and  gloves  she  had  just  finished,  and  presents  me 
with  a  pair  half  done,  which  she  begs  I  will  finish 
and  wear  for  her  sake.' 

"  Such  is  the  picture  of  the  wealthy  and  honored 
wife  of  Washington,  in  the  privacy  of  her  home. 
What  an  example  of  industry  and  economy  for  the 
wives  and  daughters  of  America!  Mrs.  Washington 
always  spoke  of  the  days  of  her  public  life  at  New 
York  and  Philadelphia,  as  her  '  lost  days.'  "  1 

We  may  well  wind  up  this  chapter  with  the  views, 
in  brief,  of  her  two  most  recent  biographers : 

"Very  little  is  really  known  of  his  wife,  beyond 
the  facts  that  she  was  petite,  over-fond,  hot-tempered, 
obstinate,  and  a  poor  speller.  In  1778,  she  was  de- 
scribed as  '  a  sociable,  pretty  kind  of  woman/  and  she 
seems  to  have  been  but  little  more.  One  who  knew 
her  well  described  her  as  '  not  possessing  much  sense, 
though  a  perfect  lady  and  remarkably  well  calculated 
for  her  position/  and  confirmatory  of  this  is  the 
opinion  of  an  English  traveller  that  '  there  was  noth- 
ing remarkable  in  the  person  of  the  lady  of  the  Pres- 
ident; she  was  matronly  and  kind,  with  perfect  good 
breeding.'  None  the  less  she  satisfied  Washington ; 
even  after  the  proverbial  six  months  were  over  he  re- 
fused to  wander  from  Mount  Vernon,  writing  that  '  I 
am  now,  I  believe,  fixed  at  this  seat  with  an  agreeable 
Consort  for  life/  and  in  1783  he  spoke  of  her  as  the 
'  partner  of  all  my  Domestic  enjoyments.' 

1  Bishop  Meade's  Old  Churches  and  Families  of  Virginia, 
vol.  i,  p.  08. 


The  Widow  Custis  123 

"John  Adams,  in  one  of  his  recurrent  moods  of 
bitterness  and  jealousy  towards  Washington,  de- 
manded, '  Would  Washington  have  ever  been  com- 
mander of  the  revolutionary  army  or  president  of  the 
United  States  if  he  had  not  married  the  rich  widow 
of  Mr.  Custis  ? '  To  ask  such  a  question  is  to  over- 
look the  fact  that  Washington's  colonial  military  fame 
was  entirely  achieved  before  his  marriage."  1 

"  To  the  charm  of  youth  and  beauty  were  added 
that  touch  of  quiet  sweetness  and  that  winning  grace 
of  self-possession  which  come  to  a  woman  wived  in 
her  girlhood,  and  widowed  before  age  or  care  has 
checked  the  first  full  tide  of  life.  At  seventeen  she 
had  married  Daniel  Parke  Custis,  a  man  more  than 
twenty  years  her  senior;  but  eight  years  of  quiet  love 
and  duty  as  wife  and  mother  had  only  made  her  youth 
the  more  gracious  in  that  rural  land  of  leisure  and 
good  neighbourhood ;  and  a  year's  widowhood  had 
been  but  a"  suitable  preparation  for  perceiving  the 
charm  of  this  stately  young  soldier  who  now  came 
riding  her  way  upon  the  public  business.  His  age 
was  her  own;  all  the  land  knew  him  and  loved  him 
for  gallantry  and  brave  capacity;  he  carried  himself 
like  a  prince — and  he  forgot  his  errand  to  linger  in 
her  company."  2 

"  But  when  at  last  he  was  free  again,  there  was  no 
reason  why  Washington  should  wait  longer  to  be 
happy,  and  he  was  married  to  Martha  Custis  on  the 
6th  of  January,  1759.  The  sun  shone  very  bright 
that  day,  and  there  was  the  fine  glitter  of  gold,  the 

1  Paul  Leicester  Ford,  The  True  George  Washington,  p.  93. 

2  Woodrow  Wilson,  George  Washington,  p.  99. 


124  George  Washington 

brave  show  of  resplendent  uniforms,  in  the  little 
church  where  the  marriage  was  solemnized.  Officers 
of  His  Majesty's  service  crowded  there,  in  their  gold 
lace  and  scarlet  coats,  to  see  their  comrade  wedded; 
the  new  Governor,  Francis  Fauquier,  himself  came, 
clad  as  befitted  his  rank;  and  the  bridegroom  took 
the  sun  not  less  gallantly  than  the  rest,  as  he  rode,  in 
blue  and  silver  and  scarlet,  beside  the  coach  and  six 
that  bore  his  bride  homeward  amidst  the  thronging 
friends  of  the  countryside.  The  young  soldier's  love 
of  a  gallant  array  and  a  becoming  ceremony  was  satis- 
fied to  the  full,  and  he  must  have  rejoiced  to  be  so 
brave  a  horseman  on  such  a  day.  For  three  months 
of  deep  content  he  lived  with  his  bride  at  her  own 
residence,  the  White  House,  by  York  Riverside, 
where  their  troth  had  been  plighted,  forgetting  the 
fatigues  of  the  frontier,  and  learning  gratefully  the 
new  life  of  quiet  love  and  homely  duty. 

"  These  peaceful,  healing  months  gone  by,  he  turned 
once  more  to  public  business.  Six  months  before  his 
marriage  he  had  been  chosen  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Burgesses  for  Frederick  County — the  county 
which  had  been  his  scene  of  adventure  in  the  old  days 
of  surveying  in  the  wilderness,  and  in  which  ever 
since  Braddock's  fatal  rout  he  had  maintained  his 
headquarters  striving  to  keep  the  border  against  the 
savages."  J 

Of  the  passages  here  quoted,  let  the  reader  select 
for  himself  the  one  best  suited  to  his  conception  of 
Lady  Washington,  as  she  comes  down  to  us  on  the 
white  wings  of  unsullied  tradition. 

^Voodrow  Wilson,  George   Washington,  p.   102. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

ARCADY 

IN  1756-60,  an  English  archdeacon  was  travelling 
through    Virginia   on    horseback,    and   in   the 
course  of  his  travels  he  comes  to  Mount  Vernon, 
which  he  thus  describes: 

"  From  Colchester  we  went  about  twelve  miles  far- 
ther to  Mount  Vernon.  This  place  is  the  property  of 
Colonel  Washington,  and  truly  deserving  of  its  owner. 
The  house  is  most  beautifully  situated  upon  a  high 
hill  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac;  and  commands  a 
noble  prospect  of  water,  of  cliffs,  of  woods,  and  planta- 
tion. The  river  is  nearly  two  miles  broad,  though  two 
hundred  from  the  mouth;  and  divides  the  dominions 
of  Virginia  from  Maryland.  We  rested  here  one  day, 
and  proceeded  up  the  river  about  twenty-six  miles,  to 
take  a  view  of  the  Great  Falls."  * 

It  was  to  this  "  beautifully  situated  "  place  that 
the  young  colonel  took  his  bride,  in  the  spring  of 
1759,  after  a  happy  honeymoon  of  three  months 
spent  at  the  "  White  House,"  part  of  the  ancestral 
acres  of  the  Dandridges.  Of  these  acres,  15,000 
belonged  to  the  Custis  estate,  and  came,  with  the 
fair  widow's  £45,000  in  stocks,  bonds,  and  money, 
under  the  care  and  charge  of  her  energetic  husband. 

1A.  Burnaby,  Travels  Through  North  America,  p.  67. 
125 


126  George  Washing-ton 

How  energetic  this  young  man  was,  and  how  lynx- 
eyed  in  his  circumstantial  consideration  of  all  "  the 
ins  and  outs,  ups  and  downs "  of  the  connubial 
state,  may  be  gathered  from  his  first  letter  to  his 
London  agents,  Robert  Gary  &  Co.,  Merchants, 
London,  and  from  the  significant  invoice  that 
follows : 

"  To  ROBERT  GARY  AND  COMPANY,  MERCHANTS, 
LONDON 

"  Williamsburg,  i  May,  1759. 
"  GENTLN., 

"  The  inclosed  is  the  minister's  certificate  of  my 
marriage  with  Mrs.  Martha  Custis,  properly,  as  I  am 
told,  authenticated.  You  will,  therefore,  for  the  future 
please  to  address  all  your  letters,  which  relate  to  the 
affairs  of  the  late  Daniel  Parke  Custis,  Esqr.,  to  me, 
as  by  marriage  I  am  entitled  to  a  third  part  of  that 
estate,  and  invested  likewise  with  the  care  of  the  other 
two  thirds  by  a  decree  of  our  General  Court,  which  I 
obtained  in  order  to  strengthen  the  power  I  before  had 
in  consequence  of  my  wife's  administration. 

"  I  have  many  letters  of  yours  in  my  possession 
unanswered;  but  at  present  this  serves  only  to  advise 
you  of  the  above  change,  and  at  the  same  time  to  ac- 
quaint you,  that  I  shall  continue  to  make  you  the  same 
consignments  of  tobacco  as  usual,  and  will  endeavor 
to  increase  it  in  proportion  as  I  find  myself  and  the 
estate  benefited  thereby. 

"  The  scarcity  of  the  last  year's  crop,  and  the  high 
prices  of  tobacco,  consequent  thereupon,  would,  in  any 
other  case,  have  induced  me  to  sell  the  estate's  crop 
(which  indeed  is  only  16  hhd.)  in  the  country;  but, 


Arcady  127 

for  a  present,  and  I  hope  small  advantage  only,  I  did 
not  care  to  break  the  chain  of  correspondence,  that 
has  so  long  subsisted,  and  therefore  have,  according 
to  your  desire,  given  Captn.  Talman,  an  offer  of  the 
whole. 

"  On  the  other  side  is  an  invoice  of  some  goods, 
which  I  beg  of  you  to  send  me  by  the  first  ship,  bound 
either  to  Potomack  or  Rappahannock,  as  I  am  in  im- 
mediate want  of  them.  Let  them  be  insured,  and,  in 
case  of  accident  re-shipped  without  delay.  Direct  for 
me  at  Mount  Vernon,  Potomack  River,  Virginia;  the 
former  is  the  name  of  my  seat,  the  other  of  the  river 
on  which  'tis  situated.  I  am,  etc. 

"May,  1759. 

"  Invoice  of  Sundry  Goods  to  be  Ship'd  by  Robt. 
Gary,  Esq.,  and  Company  for  the  use  of  George  Wash- 
ington— viz : 

"  i  Tester  Bedstead  7^/2  feet  pitch  with  fashionable 
bleu  or  blue  and  white  curtains  to  suit  a  Room  laid  w 
yl  Ireld.  paper. — 

"  Window  curtains  of  the  same  for  two  windows ; 
with  either  Papier  Mache  Cornish  to  them,  or  Cornish 
covered  with  the  Cloth. 

"  i  fine  Bed  Coverlid  to  match  the  Curtains.  4 
Chair  bottoms  of  the  same;  that  is,  as  much  covering 
suited  to  the  above  furniture  as  will  go  over  the  seats  of 
4  Chairs  (which  I  have  by  me)  in  order  to  make  the 
whole  furniture  of  this  Room  uniformly  handsome  and 
genteel. 

"  i.  Fashionable  Sett  of  Desert  Glasses  and  Stands 
for  Sweetmeats  Jellys  etc. — together  with  Wash 
Glasses  and  a  proper  Stand  for  these  also. — 

"  2  Setts  of  Chamber,  or  Bed  Carpets — Wilton. 


128  George  Washington 

"  4.  Fashionable  China  Branches  &  Stands  for 
Candles. 

"  2  Neat  fire  Screens — 

"  50  Ibs.  Spirma  Citi  Candles — 

"  6  Carving  Knives  and  Forks — handles  of  Stained 
Ivory  and  bound  with  Silver. 

"  A  pretty  large  Assortment  of  Grass  Seeds — 
among  which  let  there  be  a  good  deal  of  Lucerne  and 
St.  Foi,  especially  the  former,  also  a  good  deal  of 
English  bleu  Grass  Clover  Seed  I  have — 

"  i  Large  neat  and  Easy  Couch  for  a  Passage. 

"  50  yards  of  best  Floor  Matting. — 

"  2  pair  of  fashionable  mixd.  or  Marble  Cold.  Silk 
Hose. 

"  6  pr.  of  finest  cotton  Ditto. 

"  6  pr.  of  finest  thread  Ditto. 

"  6  pr.  of  midling  Do.  to  cost  abt  5/ 

"  6  pr  worsted  Do  of  yl  best  Sorted — 2  pr  of  wch  to 
be  white. 

"  N.  B.  All  the  above  Stockings  to  be  long,  and 
tolerably  large. 

"  I  piece  of  finest  and  most  fashionable  Stock  Tape. 

"  i  Suit  of  Cloaths  of  the  finest  Cloth  &  fashionable 
colour  made  by  the  Inclos'd  measure. — 

"  The  newest  and  most  approvd  Treatise  of  Agri- 
culture— besides  this,  send  me  a  Small  piece  in  Octavo 
— called  a  New  System  of  Agriculture,  or  a  Speedy 
Way  to  grow  Rich. 

"  Longley's  Book  of  Gardening. — 

"  Gibson,  upon  Horses,  the  lattest  Edition  in 
Quarto — 

"  Half  a  dozn  pair  of  Men's  neatest  shoes,  and 
Pumps,  to  be  made  by  one  Didsbury  on  Colo.  Baylor's 


Arcady  1 29 

Last — but  a  little  larger  than  his — &  to  have  high 
heels — 

"  6  pr  Mens  riding  Gloves — rather  large  than  the 
middle  size. 

"  One  neat  Pocket  Book,  capable  of  receiving  Mem- 
orandoms  &  Small  Cash  accts.  to  be  made  of  Ivory, 
or  any  thing  else  that  will  admit  of  cleaning. — 

"  Fine  Soft  Calf  Skin  for  a  pair  of  Boots — 

"  Ben  leathr.  for  Soles. 

"  Six  Bottles  of  Greenhows  Tincture. 

"  Order  from  the  best  House  in  Madeira  a  Pipe  of 
the  best  Old  Wine,  and  let  it  be  securd  from  Pil- 
ferers." l 

Having  married  a  fashionable  woman — a  sen- 
sible "  nut-brown  maid,"  so  brunette  of  complexion 
and  brilliant  of  eye  that  tradijtion  called  her  "  the 
dark  ladye  " — Washington  felt  it  necessary  to  be 
fashionable  too,  in  all  his  dress  and  appointments; 
shoes,  saddles,  gloves,  glass,  table-ware,  beds,  dra- 
peries, silken  hose,  and  daily  habiliments  must  all 
be  of  fashionable  type,  cut,  or  kind ;  the  ancient  hos- 
pitalities of  the  place  must  be  kept  up  with  a  pipe 
of  the  best  Madeira;  ivory-handled  knives,  inlaid 
with  silver,  must  grace  the  festal  board,  while  papier- 
mache  mouldings  set  off  the  windows  whose  flow- 
ing draperies  must  come  from  London. 

The  Arcadian  life,  which  was  to  last  nearly  fif- 
teen years,  had  begun.  Agriculture,  gardening, 
horses,  tobacco:  these  are  to  fill  the  gallant  Colo- 
nel's life  for  the  next  half-generation,  and  to  occupy 

1  Ford,   Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  ii,  pp.   126-129. 


130  George  Washington 

time  and  attention  once  wholly  given  to  Indian 
warfare,  expeditions  into  the  wilderness,  the  settle- 
ment of  the  Ohio  Company's  affairs  in  the  region 
of  "  The  Beautiful  River,"  to  active  and  earnest 
correspondence  with  Dinwiddie  about  frontier  dif- 
ficulties, building  of  forts,  enrolment  or  desertion 
of  troops,  the  thousand  what-nots  of  responsible 
official  life  under  Lord  Albemarle,  or  the  Earl  of 
Loudon. 

The  ten  years  of  intense  activity,  between  1749 
and  1759,  were  to  be  succeeded  by  fifteen  years  of 
halcyon  calm — halcyon  as  compared  with  the  unhal- 
lowed activities  of  the  frontier — during  which  he 
was  to  pass  through  another  and  most  honourable 
phase  of  his  education  for  greater  things,  his  fifteen 
years'  service  in  the  Virginia  House  of  Burgesses. 
A  premonition  of  this  service  crops  out  in  the  fol- 
lowing anecdote,  preserved  for  us  by  William  Wirt, 
to  whom  it  was  related  by  Edmund  Randolph,  an 
eye-witness  of  the  scene: 

"Colonel  Washington  resided  with  his  wife  at  the 
White  House,  for  three  months  after  marriage,  for 
his  duties  as  a  member  of  the  house  of  burgesses  re- 
quired his  presence  at  Williamsburg  a  considerable 
portion  of  that  time.  Soon  after  the  meeting  of  that 
body,  in  January,  it  was  resolved  to  return  their  thanks 
to  Washington,  in  a  public  manner,  for  the  distin- 
guished services  which  he  had  rendered  to  his  country. 
His  tried  friend,  Mr.  Robinson,  was  yet  the  speaker, 
and  upon  him  devolved  the  duty." 

The  scene  on  the  occasion,  as  related  by  Mr.  Wirt, 


Arcady  131 

on  the  authority  of  an  eye-witness,  was  a  memorable 
one. 

"  As  soon  as  Colonel  Washington  took  his  seat," 
says  Wirt,  "  Mr.  Robinson,  in  obedience  to  this  order, 
and  following  the  impulse  of  his  own  generous  and 
grateful  heart,  discharged  the  duty  with  great  dignity, 
but  with  such  warmth  of  coloring,  and  strength  of 
expression,  as  entirely  to  confound  the  young  hero. 
He  rose  to  express  his  acknowledgments  for  the 
honor;  but  such  was  his  trepidation  and  confusion, 
that  he  could  not  give  distinct  utterance  to  a  single 
syllable.  He  blushed,  stammered,  and  trembled  for  a 
second ;  when  the  speaker  relieved  him,  by  a  stroke  of 
address  that  would  have  done  honor  to  Louis  the 
Fourteenth  in  his  proudest  and  happiest  moment.  '  Sit 
down,  Mr.  Washington/  said  he,  with  a  conciliatory 
smile,  '  your  modesty  is  equal  to  your  valor,  and  that 
surpasses  the  power  of  any  language  that  I  possess.' "  * 

We  see  the  young  officer  poring  over  Longley's 
Book  of  Gardening,  "  the  newest  and  most  impor- 
tant Treatise  of  Agriculture,"  "  a  small  piece  in 
Octavo — called  A  New  System  of  Agriculture," 
and  Gibson  upon  Horses,  "  the  latest  Edition  in 
Quarto,"  intent  upon  renewing -his  lands  and  gar- 
dens and  grounds,  delightful  reminiscences  of  which 
still  remain  in  the  surroundings  of  Mount  Vernon. 
His  passion  for  fine  breeds  of  horses  is  evidenced 
by  his  early  order  for  Gibson's  book  on  the  subject, 
and  many  are  the  references,  in  the  correspondence, 

1  Lossing,  Washington  and  the  American  Republic,  vol.  i, 
p.  288. 


132  George  Washington 

to  the  noble  succession  of  blooded  steeds  that  fol- 
lowed each  other  in  his  stables — Ajax,  and  Blue- 
skin,  and  Silver  Eye,  and  Shakspere,  Magnolia, 
and  Prescott,  and  Jackson,  and  Nelson,  the  charger 
ridden  at  Cornwallis's  surrender  in  1781,  but  never 
again,  thereafter,  mounted. 

The  young  master  of  Mount  Vernon  was  one  of 
those  buoyant  and  irrepressible  personalities,  who 
by  the  mere  force  of  their  buoyancy  and  irrepres- 
sibility  must  always  rise  to  the  top  whether  in  peace 
or  war.  For  a  hundred  miles  around  he  was  the 
envy  and  admiration  of  the  colonial  gentry,  a  stand- 
ing candidate  when  an  election  for  burgesses  was 
to  be  held,  as  constantly  re-elected,  a  toast  at  planta- 
tion tables  where  he  was  Othello  to  many  a 
Desdemona,  a  godfather  in  demand  by  the  baby  Vir- 
ginians, who  took  the  opportunity  of  the  mid-cen- 
tury to  appear  upon  the  scene,  a  welcome  friend  and 
adviser  to  those  who  claimed  his  scientific  or  prac- 
tical knowledge. 

The  Rev.  Andrew  Burnaby  alludes,  in  an  ex- 
tended footnote,  to  the  universal  esteem  in  which 
Washington  was  ever  thus  held  after  his  gallantry 
in  the  Braddock  'expedition,  and,  describing  the 
political  character  of  the  Virginians  of  the  time, 
remarks : 

'  The  public  or  political  character  of  the  Virginians 
corresponds  with  their  private  one:  they  are  haughty 
and  jealous  of  their  liberties,  impatient  of  restraint, 
and  can  scarcely  bear  the  thought  of  being  controuled 
by  any  superior  power.  Many  of  them  consider  the 


Arcady  133 

colonies  as  independent  states,  not  connected  with 
Great  Britain,  otherwise  than  by  having  the  same  com- 
mon king,  and  being  bound  to  her  by  natural  affection. 
There  are  but  few  of  them  that  have  a  turn  for  busi- 
ness, and  even  those  are  by  no  means  expert  at  it.  I 
have  known  them,  upon  a  very  urgent  occasion,  vote 
the  relief  of  a  garrison,  without  once  considering 
whether  the  thing  was  practicable,  when  it  was  most 
evidently  and  demonstrably  otherwise.  In  matters  of 
commerce  they  are  ignorant  of  the  necessary  principles 
that  must  prevail  between  a  colony  and  the  mother 
country ;  they  think  it  a  hardship  not  to  have  an  un- 
limited trade  to  every  part  of  the  world.  They  consider 
the  duties  upon  their  staple  as  injurious  only  to  them- 
selves ;  and  it  is  utterly  impossible  to  persuade  them 
that  they  affect  the  consumer  also.  However,  to  do 
them  justice,  the  same  spirit  of  generosity  prevails  here 
which  does  in  their  private  character;  they  never  re- 
fuse any  necessary  supplies  for  the  support  of  gov- 
ernment when  called  upon,  and  are  a  generous  and 
loyal  people. 

"  The  women  are,  generally  speaking,  handsome, 
though  not  to  be  compared  with  our  fair  country- 
women in  England.  They  have  but  few  advantages, 
and  consequently  are  seldom  accomplished ;  this  makes 
them  reserved,  and  unequal  to  any  interesting  or  re- 
fined conversation.  They  are  immoderately  fond  of 
dancing,  and  indeed  it  is  almost  the  only  amusement 
they  partake  of:  but  even  in  this  they  discover  want 
of  taste  and  elegance,  and  seldom  appear  with  that 
gracefulness  and  ease,  which  these  movements  are 
calculated  to  display."  1 

1  A.  Burnaby,  Travels  Through  North  America,  pp.  55-56. 


134  George  Washington 

Virginia,  indeed,  was  about  to  enter  into  that 
"  imminent  deadly  breach,"  which  even  now  was 
widening  fearfully  between  mother  and  daughter, 
and  could  only  be  bridged  over  by  thousands  of 
slain  and  millions  of  money.  The  venerable  arch- 
deacon, fresh  from  his  Greenwich  vicarage,  and  full 
of  his  old-world  sensitiveness  to  impressions,  felt 
this  growing  independence  of  Virginia,  and  breathed 
it  vigorously  into  the  ear  of  his  countrymen  as  soon 
as  he  returned  to  England. 

Washington's  Journal  of  this  period  is  filled  with 
minute  and  interesting  particulars  of  his  life  and 
occupations  a  year  after  his  marriage.  "  Mrs.  Wash- 
ington is  taken  down  with  Meazles,"  and  ladies 
and  gentlemen  come  and  go  in  their  "  chariots," 
which  lumber  from  plantation  to  plantation  in  the 
slow  manner  of  the  time.  Bishop  Meade,  in  his 
Old  Churches,  gives  a  quaint  account  of  the  fates 
and  fortunes  of  one  of  the  Washington  chariots 
which  fell  into  his  possession: 

"  There  was,  however,  one  object  of  interest  belong- 
ing to  General  Washington,  concerning  which  I  have 
a  special  right  to  speak, — viz.:  his  old  English  coach, 
in  which  himself  and  Mrs.  Washington  not  only  rode 
in  Fairfax  county,  but  travelled  through  the  length 
and  breadth  of  our  land.  So  faithfully  was  it  executed 
that,  at  the  conclusion  of  this  long  journey,  its  builder, 
who  came  over  with  it  and  settled  in  Alexandria,  was 
proud  to  be  told  by  the  General  that  not  a  nail  or  screw 
had  failed.  It  so  happened,  in  a  way  I  need  not  state, 
that  this  coach  came  into  my  hands  about  fifteen  years 


Arcady  1 35 

after  the  death  of  General  Washington.  In  the  course 
of  time,  from  disuse,  it  being  too  heavy  for  these  lat- 
ter days,  it  began  to  decay  and  give  way.  Becoming 
an  object  of  desire  to  those  who  delight  in  relics,  I 
caused  it  to  be  taken  to  pieces  and  distributed  among 
the  admiring  friends  of  Washington  who  visited  my 
house,  and  also  among  a  number  of  female  associations 
for  benevolent  and  religious  objects,  which  associa- 
tions, at  their  fairs  and  on  other  occasions,  made  a 
large  profit  by  converting  the  fragments  into  walking- 
sticks,  picture-frames,  and  snuff-boxes.  About  two- 
thirds  of  one  of  the  wheels  thus  produced  one  hundred 
and  forty  dollars.  There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that 
at  its  dissolution  it  yielded  more  to  the  cause  of  charity 
than  it  did  to  its  builder  at  its  first  erection.  Besides 
other  mementos  of  it,  I  have  in  my  study,  in  the  form 
of  a  sofa,  the  hind-seat,  on  which  the  General  and  his 
lady  were  wont  to  sit."  * 

"  I  have  always  considered  marriage,"  wrote 
Washington,  "  as  the  most  interesting  event  of  one's 
life  " ;  "  you  too,"  he  wrote  to  Chastellux,  "  have 
caught  that  terrible  contagion  domestic  felicity — 
which  same,  like  the  smallpox  or  the  plague,  a  man 
can  have  only  once  in  his  life ;  because  it  commonly 
lasts  him  (at  least  with  us  in  America, — I  don't 
know  how  you  manage  these  matters  in  France)  for 
his  whole  lifetime." 

Washington  had  indeed  "  caught  the  contagion  " 
of  which  he  writes,  once  for  all.  Always  a  favourite 
with  women,  who  wrote  to  him  off  and  on  during 

1  Bishop  Meade,  Old  Churches  and  Families  of  Virginia, 
vol.  ii,  p.  237. 


136  George  Washington 

his  entire  life,  and  eagerly  courted  his  notice  both 
during  the  dark  and  the  bright  days  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, he  has  left  many  charming  references  to  them 
in  his  letters  to  Nellie  Custis,  Mrs.  Fairfax, 
"  Jackie  "  Custis's  widow,  and  others,  and  he  ex- 
celled in  all  the  polite  accomplishments  which  the 
women  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  supposed 
most  to  desire.  He  rode  well,  was  an  accomplished 
dancer  (keeping  up  the  Terpsichorean  grace  till  he 
was  sixty-six),  played  loo,  whist,  and  other  games, 
though  never  with  the  feverish  passion  of  Charles 
James  Fox,  and  his  other  great  contemporaries 
across  the  water;  was  a  tried  pedestrian,  thinking 
nothing  (as  Burnaby  says)  of  walking  four  hun- 
dred miles  to  the  Ohio  and  back,  on  his  mission  to 
St.  Pierre;  and  was  an  adept  in  swordmanship, 
learned  from  his  old  teacher,  Van  Braam. 

No  apothecary's  or  mercer's  clerk  could  be  more 
minute  than  he,  when  he  was  ordering  medicines 
for  Mount  Vernon  or  dress-goods  for  Mrs.  Wash- 
ington; and  Master  John  and  Miss  Patsy  came  in 
for  their  London  orders  on  Gary  &  Co.,  for  all 
sorts  of  haberdashery,  trinkets,  toys,  dolls  ("  fash- 
ionable "  at  10  shillings),  children's  books,  pastes, 
powders,  perfumes,  "  trifles  light  as  air,"  yet  heavy 
enough  to  load  a  good  ship,  travelling  Virginia- 
ward  in  the  changeable  frost-laden  weather  of  1760. 
Even  a  pair  of  stays  is  ordered  for  the  tiny  miss  of 
four,  and  pumps  and  breast-knots,  ribbons  for  the 
hair,  and  buckles  for  the  shoes,  ivory  combs  and 
"  minikin  "  and  corking  pins,  packs  of  playing  cards, 


Arcady  137 

bell-glasses,  scarlet  broadcloth,  "  Easter  Hats  at 
about  5  Shillings,"  and  et  ceteras  innumerable,  pic- 
turesquely interspersed  with  orders  for  green  tea, 
cheese,  plantation  utensils,  jalap,  and  hogsheads  of 
porter. 

Tobacco  was  at  that  time  (Burnaby)  selling  at 
fifty  shillings  a  hundredweight;  and  Washington 
is  very  solicitous  about  the  great  staple,  16,000 
pounds  of  which  was  lawful  salary  for  a  "  parson," 
of  whom  there  were  then  between  sixty  and  seventy, 
mostly  praiseworthy  persons,  says  the  archdeacon, 
in  the  province. 

The  broad  Potomac  stretched  in  shining  silver 
at  the  door,  and  there  on  many  a  summer's  day, 
or  springtime  morning,  when  the  marvellous  shoals 
of  shad  and  herring  began  their  run  up  the  river, 
might  be  witnessed  the  tragedy  chronicled  in  the 
archdeacon's  pages: 

"  A  very  curious  sight  is  frequently  exhibited  upon 
this  and  the  other  great  rivers  in  Virginia,  which  for 
its  novelty  is  exceedingly  diverting  to  strangers.  Dur- 
ing the  spring  and  summer  months  the  fishing-hawk 
is  often  seen  hovering  over  the  rivers,  or  resting  on 
the  wing  without  the  least  visible  change  of  place  for 
some  minutes,  then  suddenly  darting  down  and  plung- 
ing into  the  water,  from  whence  it  seldom  rises  again 
without  a  rock  fish,  or  some  other  considerable  fish, 
in  its  talons.  It  immediately  shakes  off  the  water  like 
a  mist,  and  makes  the  best  of  its  way  towards  the 
woods.  The  bald  eagle,  which  is  generally  upon  the 
watch,  instantly  pursues,  and  if  it  can  overtake,  en- 


138  George  Washington 

deavours  to  soar  above  it.  The  hawk  growing  soli- 
citous for  its  own  safety  drops  the  fish,  and  the  bald 
eagle  immediately  stoops,  and  seldom  fails  to  catch  it 
in  its  pounces  before  it  reaches  the  water."  1 

Many  a  time  did  Washington,  doubtless,  become 
a  spectator  of  the  airy  battle,  as  he  strode  up  and 
down  the  pillared  portico  of  his  residence,  and 
looked  out  over  the  river  to  the  soft,  blue  hills  of  the 
Dominion  of  Maryland,  where  ninety  thousand  loyal 
subjects  of  King  George  III.  (but  just  proclaimed 
King)  then  dwelt  in  peace  and  plenty;  times  so 
peaceful  and  plenteous  that  diamond-back  terrapin 
were  fed  to  negroes,  and  wild-duck — teal,  mallard, 
red-head,  or  what  not — to  him  that  fancied  it. 

Visits  to  this  delectable  land  varied  with  trips  to 
Williamsburg,  and  trots  to  Alexandria,  in  chaise, 
chariot,  or  aback  of  one  of  the  fine  saddle-horses. 
Hardly  a  day  passed  without  the  round  of  the  plan- 
tations being  traversed  over  ten  or  fifteen  miles  of 
delightful  woodland,  or  through  fields  where  the 
bannered  tobacco  lifted  its  pale-green,  mullein-like 
stalks,  and  flung  to  the  breeze  those  wonderfully 
delicate  leaves  which,  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave, 
from  burgeon  to  blossom  and  ripening  sweetness, 
needed  tireless  vigilance  against  worm  and  blight 
and  pest  of  every  description,  until  they  turned  into 
the  golden  leaves  that,  literally,  became  leaves  of 
gold  in  the  warehouses  of  Robert  Gary  &  Co.,  of 
the  London  market. 

1  A.  Burnaby,  Travels  Through  North  America,  p.  68. 


Arcady  139 

The  vast  leisure  of  Arcadian  life  lent  Washington 
time  for  those  huge  invoices — all  in  his  own  auto- 
graph— which  he  from  time  to  time  despatched  to 
London,  invoices  which  give  faithful  glimpses  of 
the  luxury  of  the  years  antedating  '76,  as  well  as  of 
the  details  of  a  well-ordered  gentleman's  household. 

As  Washington  re-wrote  his  "  dear  Patsy's  "  let- 
ters for  her  when  occasion  required,  so,  doubtless, 
the  pair  consulted  together  over  these  marvellous 
lists  to  be  forwarded  to  London,  including  every- 
thing from  "  white  and  brown  sugar  Candy  "  to 
"  tester  Bedsteads,"  emetics,  purges,  brimstone, 
"  spermi  Ceti "  candles,  and  exact  measurements 
for  "  shoes  like  Colonel  Baylor's." 

Intense  must  have  been  the  excitement  and  amuse- 
ment in  the  Mount  Vernon  household,  when  some 
agile  little  "  picaninny "  came  flying  up  to  the 
"  Great  House,"  and  announced  that  a  white-sailed 
brig  or  bark  had  dropped  anchor  at  the  wharf  below, 
while  the  browned  and  whiskered  master,  tawny 
with  sea-salt  and  sunburn,  asked  for  Colonel  Wash- 
ington. 

And  the  unpacking  of  such  an  invoice  as  the  four 
or  five  double-columned  one,  on  page  134  of  Ford's 
Writings  of  George  Washington,  must  have  been 
the  opening  of  the  realm  of  King  Santa  Claus  him- 
self, when  it  reached  Mount  Vernon. 

Interesting  accounts  exist  of  the  celebration  of 
Christmas  at  this  very  time,  in  the  Old  Dominion, 
in  the  Journal  kept  by  a  Princeton  divinity  student, 
then  tutor  at  Nomini  Hall,  seat  of  the  Carters,  not 


140  George  Washington 

far  from  Mount  Vernon,  and  within  convenient 
riding  distance  of  Bushfield,  where  John  Augustine 
Washington  lived,  and  of  Mount  Airy,  the  lovely 
and  lordly  seat  of  the  Tayloes  (still  in  existence). 

This  worthy  gentleman  went  down  to  Virginia, 
what  the  slang  of  the  day  called  a  "  blue "  Pres- 
byterian ;  but  after  a  year's  residence  at  "  Nomini 
Hall"  became  almost  a  "perverted"  Episcopalian  in 
point  of  reverence  for  dancing,  horse-racing,  cock- 
fighting,  "  stepping  the  minuet,"  toasting  the  ladies, 
and  other  genial  amusements  then  prevalent  in  the 
"  Northern  Neck."  The  negroes  (of  whom  there 
were  six  hundred  on  the  sixty  thousand  Carter 
acres)  expected  liberal  remembrances  in  the  way  of 
"  bits  "  and  half-bits  (parts  of  a  divided  pisterine, 
used  as  currency,  and  equivalent  to  a  few  pence, 
English),  rum-and-water,  "  pisimmon  "  extract  (as 
Master  Fithian  writes  it),  and  other  potential  spirit- 
uous agencies;  the  gentry  rode  from  plantation  to 
plantation  forming  house-parties  or  giving  balls, 
ladies  in  the  gorgeous  quilted  skirts,  bodices,  and 
brocades  of  the  period,  with  creped  hair,  fantastic- 
ally wreathed  with  artificial  flowers  and  strings  of 
pearls,  "  tripped  the  light  fantastic  toe  "  through  the 
mazes  of  the  dance  until  dawn  glistened  over  the 
rosy  Potomac,  and  marches,  jigs,  reels,  and  "  coun- 
try dances "  (cotillions)  succeeded  each  other  in 
swift  profusion.  Councillor  Carter  was  a  born 
musician,  and  his  house  resounded  with  the  tinkling 
guitar,  the  silvery  harmonicum  (just  invented  by 
the  all-accomplished  Benjamin  Franklin),  the  violin, 


WASHINGTON  MEDAL  (1776). 


Arcady  141 

flute,  harpsichord,  and  organ;  each  of  the  seven 
children  played  on  something  or  other,  and  even  the 
Presbyterian  tutor  beguiles  one  of  the  Carter  boys 
to  play  the  flute  for  him  twenty  minutes  every  night 
after  he  had  retired  to  bed.  Nellie  Custis's  harpsi- 
chord— on  which  "  she  played  and  cried  and  cried 
and  played "  when  her  inexorable  grandmamma, 
Mrs.  Washington,  made  her  practice  six  hours  a 
day — and  Washington's  flute  were  not  yet  part  of 
the  paraphernalia  of  Mount  Vernon;  but  there  can 
be  no  doubt  of  the  Colonel's  fondness  for  music, 
dancing,  the  whist-table  (note  the  two  dozen  packs 
of  playing  cards  ordered  in  one  of  his  invoices),  the 
back  of  a  fine  horse,  and  the  soft  swing  and  swoop 
of  a  luxurious  chariot.  It  is  on  record  that  he 
danced  three  hours  hand-running,  without  once  sit- 
ting down,  when  Mrs.  Nathaniel  Greene,  wife  of 
the  General,  was  his  partner  at  a  historic  ball ;  while 
his  ever-conscientious  expense-book  records,  in  1756 
or  '57,  "  8  Shillings  at  Cards  "  and  sundry  sums  for 
"  treats "  to  the  Philadelphia  ladies,  at  the  time 
when  the  fair  eyes  of  Mary  Philipse  rested  benev- 
olently for  a  moment  on  him.  His  fondness  for 
theatres  and  theatricals  was  always  a  marked  char- 
acteristic, and  numerous  are  the  allusions  to  them 
in  his  social  correspondence  and  the  gazettes  of  the 
time. 

Even  Arcady,  however,  had  to  surrender  to  punc- 
tilio and  punctuality :  the  timepieces  of  Mount 
Vernon — gilt  French,  or  "  grandfather  "  chronom- 
eters as  they  might  be — marked  off  the  hours  with 


142  George  Washing-ton 

a  systematic  regularity  and  even  rigour,  which 
startled  more  than  one  easy-going  guest.  The 
Arcadian  couple  rose  at  dawn,  when  the  lady  betook 
herself  to  her  Bible  and  her  housekeeping,  and  the 
lord  (after  building  his  own  fire,  shaving  himself 
neatly,  and  tying  his  own  cue)  went  forth  to  inspect 
stables  and  kennels,  then  back  to  his  favourite 
breakfast  of  tea  and  corn-cakes. 

After  breakfast,  donning  his  drab  riding-suit, 
high  boots,  and  gauntlets,  he  rode  one  of  his  excel- 
lent horses  over  the  plantation,  visited  the  wheat 
and  tobacco-fields,  interviewed  the  overseer,  in- 
spected the  mills,  fisheries,  negro  quarters,  listened 
sympathetically  to  the  complaints  of  the  sick  and 
aged,  had  them  humanely  attended  to,  and  returned 
to  the  mansion  to  "  post  his  accounts  "  (a  favourite 
occupation),  study  his  gardening  or  horse-breeding 
manuals,  look  over  the  Williamsburg  Gazette,  with 
its  already  perceptible  mutterings  of  discontent  and 
revolution,  or  converse  with  the  guests,  who  were 
already  beginning  to  make  of  Mount  Vernon  what 
he,  later,  described  it  to  his  mother  as,  "  a  tavern." 
Dr.  Burnaby  was  one  of  the  countless  host  who  en- 
joyed this  unbroken  hospitality,  a  hospitality  dupli- 
cated in  a  slight  degree,  a  hundred  years  later,  at 
Craigie  House,  when  every  distinguished  foreigner 
that  visited  America  bore  a  letter  to  Longfellow. 

At  three  o'clock,  dinner  was  served,  Washington 
never  allowing  more  than  five  minutes'  difference 
in  watches  to  delay  the  meal,  and  humorously  throw- 
ing the  blame  for  the  inopportune  punctuality  on  the 


Arcady  143 

cook,  "  who  could  not  wait."  In  about  an  hour  the 
meal  was  over,  and  then,  towards  five  or  six,  after 
the  habitual  nuts,  raisins,  and  toasts — "  to  the  fair," 
to  the  "  Sons  of  Liberty,"  to  "  American  trade  and 
commerce"  (as  time  wagged  on  towards  1776), 
came  the  ever-delightful  tea  and  its  deshabille  talk. 

Washington  took  no  supper. 

At  nine  o'clock,  taking  up  a  candle  in  its  bright 
brass  candlestick,  the  host  mounted  the  staircase 
and  lighted  his  more  distinguished  guests,  person- 
ally, to  bed. 

Of  course,  the  routine  varied  when  balls  or 
entertainments  or  evening  parties  were  formally 
given,  and  the  neighbours  at  Gunston  Hall,  Belvoir, 
Nomini  Hall,  or  Mount  Airy  assembled  to  do 
honour  to  the  mistress  of  Mount  Vernon  in  a  set 
entertainment.  Then,  indeed,  the  musical  chimes 
in  the  old  clocks  jingled  out  the  midnight  hour  many 
a  time  and  oft,  and  the  flying  hours  (as  in  the  ex- 
quisite fresco  of  Guido)  saw  the  high-heeled  dames, 
and  powdered  and  ruffled  cavaliers  still  entangled 
in  the  meshes  of  the  latest  dance  from  Versailles  or 
St.  James's. 

The  worthy  Fithian  was  rudely  tempted  by  these 
gracious  pleasantries,  and  often  expressed  his  bitter 
regrets  that  he  could  not  conscientiously  enter  into 
the  innocent  and  harmless  gaieties  of  the  Virginians. 
One  thing,  however,  he  could  not  help  doing:  he 
would  toast  the  absent  "  Laura,"  when  it  fell  his 
turn — as  it  did  to  old  Caedmon  a  thousand  years 
before — "  to  play  at  the  harp  and  sing  a  song,"  i.e., 


144  George  Washington 

to  drink  a  toast;  and  Fithian  gladly  did  so  with 
the  gallants  of  Nomini  Hall.  Indeed,  his  Diary 
(dated  1773-74)  contains  various  and  sundry  en- 
tries of  strong  drinks  and  potations  for  a  sick  body, 
somewhat  inconsistent  with  the  contempt  showered, 
occasionally,  on  the  junketting  Virginians,  whose 
"  rings  of  beaux "  stand  outside  the  churches  on 
Sundays,  until  the  parson  sends  the  clerk  to  hale 
them  in  to  proper  service,  and  dame  and  cavalier  go 
around  giving  invitations  to  dinner  after  a  fifteen 
minutes'  sermon.  Seeing  that  Councillor  Carter 
successively  went  through  the  phases  of  the  Estab- 
lished, the  Baptist,  and  the  Swedenborgian  churches, 
and  wound  up  by  becoming  a  Papist,  the  young 
Presbyterian  divine  had  ample  opportunity  at  least 
to  exercise  his  theological  acumen.  But  he  never 
swerved  from  the  Westminster  Catechism,  and  died 
a  gallant  soldier,  sick  of  camp  fever,  at  Fort  Wash- 
ington in  1776,  Virginia,  to  the  last,  abiding  a  pleas- 
ant memory  in  his  soul. 

The  old  baronial  style  of  living,  between  the  par- 
allels of  the  original  grant,  was  in  this  decade  in  its 
full  glory:  the  Byrds  of  Westover,  the  Harrisons 
and  Carters  of  Brandon  and  Shirley,  the  Lewises  of 
Kenmore,  the  Fairfaxes  of  Greenway  Court  and 
Belvoir,  the  Masons  of  Gunston  Hall,  the  Calverts 
over  the  Potomac,  as  it  swept  grandly  from  its  cata- 
ract to  the  Chesapeake,  the  Pages  and  Nelsons  of 
Rosewell,  the  Lees  of  Stratford  and  Chantilly — all 
kept  up  an  easy-going,  semi-feudal  state,  into  which 
the  Washingtons  as  easily  fell  by  right  of  lineage, 


Arcady  145 

as  well  as  of  wealth  and  influential  position  in  colo- 
nial circles.  The  Parkes  had  distinguished  them- 
selves in  many  a  hard-fought  campaign  under 
Maryborough,  and  Queen  Anne,  herself,  had  be- 
stowed her  jewelled  likeness  and  a  brace  of  silver 
candlesticks  (still  owned  by  the  Lee  family)  on  the 
ancestor  of  the  line,  who  first  brought  to  her  tidings 
of  the  great  victory  of  Blenheim ;  and  kindred  over- 
sea were  speedily  to  contend  for  the  honour  of  even 
a  remote  connection  with  the  stars,  mullets,  bars, 
and  heraldic  raven  of  the  Washingtons. 

And  thus  the  golden  days — the  Saturnia  regna 
sung  in  enchanting  measures  by  the  Mantuan  poet 
— went  by,  and  Washington  might  well  repeat  to 
the  Marquis  de  Chastellux  that  "  the  married  state 
was  the  most  interesting  in  the  world." 

He  had  reached  the  Golden  Milestone. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  GOLDEN  MILESTONE 

WASHINGTON  was  now  eight-and-twenty,  an 
age  at  which  the  younger  Pitt  was  already 
prime  minister  of  Great  Britain,  Burke  had  already 
written  "  On  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful,"  the  ora- 
tory of  Charles  James  Fox  had  begun  to  assume  a 
ripened  effulgence,  and  a  whole  band  of  young  im- 
mortals— Goethe,  Burns,  Lucan,  Hugo,  Byron — 
were  already  basking  in  the  golden  light  which 
legend  wreathed  poetically  about  the  summit  of 
"  twin-peaked  Parnassus  " ;  yet  nothing  fantastic- 
ally precocious  'as  yet  appeared  in  the  steadfast 
young  American,  settled  at  Mount  Vernon  as  a 
model  farmer,  and  pursuing  the  bucolic  pleasures 
of  agriculture  as  tranquilly  as  if  he  had  just  stepped 
out  of  the  Georgics  of  Virgil.  The  restful  years 
that  followed  the  volcanic  decade  of  1750-1760  were 
years  of  quiet  preparation,  unconscious  maturing  of 
the  intellectual  powers,  unnoticed  growth  in  political 
sagacity,  and  gathering  of  virile  strength  for  use  in 
the  approaching  struggle  with  the  mother-country. 
The  Rev.  Samuel  Davies,  in  a  sermon  preached 
in  Pennsylvania,  shortly  after  Braddock's  defeat, 
had  prophetically  foreshadowed  Washington's  life 
when  he  said : 

146 


The  Golden  Milestone          147 

"  As  a  remarkable  instance  of  this,  I  may  point  out 
to  the  public  that  heroic  youth,  Colonel  Washington, 
whom  I  cannot  but  hope  Providence  has  hitherto  pre- 
served in  so  signal  a  manner  for  some  important  ser- 
vice to  his  country."  x 

This  "  heroic  lad  "  had  steadily  grown  into  the 
formidable  and  accomplished  leader  who,  on  resign- 
ing his  colonelcy  in  1/59,  after  his  arduous  duties 
were  consummated,  was  affectionately  addressed 
by  his  associate  officers  in  the  following  terms : 

'  Judge,  then,  how  sensibly  we  must  be  affected 
with  the  loss  of  such  an  excellent  commander,  such  a 
sincere  friend,  and  so  affable  a  companion.  How  rare 
is  it  to  find  these  amiable  qualities  blended  in  one 
man !  How  great  the  loss  of  such  a  man !  ...  It 
gives  us  additional  sorrow/  they  continued,  '  when 
we  reflect,  to  find  our  unhappy  country  will  receive 
a  loss  no  less  irreparable  than  our  own.  Where  will 
it  meet  a  man,  so  experienced  in  military  affairs — one 
so  renowned  for  patriotism,  conduct,  and  courage? 
Who  has  so  great  a  knowledge  of  the  enemy  we  have 
to  deal  with?  who  so  well  acquainted  with  their  sit- 
uation and  strength?  who  so  much  respected  by  the 
soldiery?  who,  in  short,  so  able  to  support  the  military 
character  of  Virginia  ?  '  "  2 

Then  requesting  him  to  name  a  fit  successor, 
they  added  in  conclusion : 

1  Ford,    Writings    of   George    Washington,   vol.    i,    p.    176, 
note. 

2  Lossing,    Washington    and    the   American    Republic,    vol. 
i,  p.  286. 


148  George  Washington 

"  '  Frankness,  sincerity,  and  certain  openness  of  soul, 
are  the  true  characteristics  of  an  officer,  and  we  flat- 
ter ourselves  that  you  do  not  think  us  capable  of  say- 
ing anything  contrary  to  the  purest  dictates  of  our 
minds.  Fully  persuaded  of  this,  we  beg  leave  to  as- 
sure you  that,  as  you  have  hitherto  been  the  actuating 
soul  of  our  whole  corps,  we  shall  at  all  times  pay 
the  most  invariable  regard  to  your  will  and  pleasure, 
and  will  always  be  happy  to  demonstrate  by  our  actions 
how  much  we  respect  and  esteem  you.' 

" '  This  opinion,'  says  Marshall,  '  was  not  confined 
to  the  officers  'of  his  regiment.  It  was  common  to  Vir- 
ginia, and  had  been  adopted  by  the  British  officers 
with  whom  he  served.  The  duties  he  performed, 
though  not  splendid,  were  arduous ;  and  were  executed 
with  zeal  and  with  judgment.  The  exact  discipline 
he  established  in  his  regiment,  when  the  temper  of 
Virginia  was  extremely  hostile  to  discipline,  does 
credit  to  his  military  character;  and  the  gallantry  his 
troops  displayed,  whenever  called  into  action,  mani- 
fests the  spirit  infused  into  them  by  their  com- 
mander.' " 1 

After  the  strenuous  military  experience  of  1753- 
1758,  it  was  most  fitting  that  the  next  stage  in  this 
remarkable  career  should  be  pastoral,  almost  bucolic, 
the  life  of  a  quiet  country  gentleman  who,  having 
married  a  woman  of  wealth  and  refinement,  settles 
down  to  a  domestic  felicity,  which  he  playfully  de- 
scribes to  the  Marquis  de  Chastellux  as  "  a  con- 
tagion "  that  has  at  length  caught  the  misanthrope 

'Lossing,  Washington  and  the  American  Republic,  vol. 
i,  p.  286. 


The  Golden  Milestone          149 

himself.  Washington  could  not  read  French,  and 
perhaps  had  never  even  heard  of  Moliere,  and  yet, 
in  his  humorous  raillery  of  the  marquis,  he  uncon- 
sciously reproduces  the  denoument  of  Le  Misan- 
thrope. 

A  little  over  a  hundred  miles  from  Mount  Vernon 
lay  Williamsburg,  the  old  colonial  capital  where  a 
hundred  and  odd  gentlemen,  calling  themselves  bur- 
gesses, met  as  the  people's  representatives,  discussed 
public  questions  affecting  the  commonwealth,  voted 
supplies  for  the  maintenance  of  the  colonial  gov- 
ernment, and  constituted  one  of  those  marvellous 
playgrounds  of  politics  and  statesmanship,  thirteen 
of  which  were  soon  to  write  in  federal  union,  and 
produce  the  document  which  Gladstone  called  the 
most  wonderful  that  ever  emanated  from  the  brain 
of  man — the  American  Constitution. 

Some  of  these  plain  country  gentlemen  had  been 
educated  in  England,  at  Oxford,  or  Lincoln's  Inn, 
or  had  been  classically  trained  in  philosophy  and  the 
humanities  under  the  six  professors  of  William  and 
Mary  College,  the  Alma  Mater  of  Jefferson,  Mon- 
roe, Tyler,  and  Chief  Justice  Marshall,  the  college 
of  which  Washington  became  chancellor  in  1777. 

This  quaint  old  sprawling  village — truly  a  "  city 
of  magnificent  distances  "  as  it  stretched  east  and 
west  into  the  primeval  forest,  and  gathered  into  its 
skirts  ample  spaces  of  the  Middle  Plantation — was 
part  of  this  time  under  the  social  sovereignty  of 
Lord  Botetourt,  a  man  whose  grace  of  manner  and 
firmness  of  touch  led  Horace  Walpole  to  charac- 


150  George  Washington 

terise  him  as  "  a  bit  of  enamelled  iron."  The  charm 
of  his  ostentatious  courtesy  and  high  spirits  led 
Virginia  to  remember  him  with  pleasure,  and  name 
one  of  her  most  beautiful  counties  after  him,  as 
she  cherished  the  name  and  fame  of  Berkeley,  Spots- 
wood,  Fairfax,  Loudon,  Fauquier,  and  Dinwiddie. 

Many  of  the  wealthier  planter  burgesses  had 
homes  at  Williamsburg,  where  they  kept  open  house 
in  the  fashion  of  Chaucer's  Canterbury  Pilgrimage, 
and  where,  at  the  ever-spread  table,  it  fairly  "  snew  " 
with  abundance  of  good  things  for  the  delectation 
of  the  nomad  legislator. 

Hither  the  Washingtons  came  during  the  fifteen 
years  the  Colonel  was  a  member  of  the  House;  and 
it  may  readily  be  inferred,  that  the  representative 
of  Fairfax  County  stood  easily  among  the  first, 
in  that  company  of  a  hundred  gentlemen  and  schol- 
ars whom  Virginia  had  assembled,  at  the  Raleigh 
Tavern  or  in  the  palace  of  Lord  Botetourt,  to  dis- 
cuss and  decide  subjects  vital  to  her  interests. 

It  is  a  strange  fact,  that  Washington's  corre- 
spondence is  almost  bare  of  references  to  his  legis- 
lative life  at  Williamsburg,  the  numerous  letters 
and  diaries  that  remain  being  absorbed  almost 
wholly  with  domestic  matters,  the  management  of 
his  estates,  orders  on  London  for  household  use, 
occasional  sharp  reproofs  to  his  London  agents  for 
extortionate  charges  and  mean  quality  of  goods, 
and  detailed  communications  to  the  Governor, 
Council,  and  others,  relative  to  land  surveys  and  the 
taking  up  of  reservations  on  the  Ohio  and  Great 


The  Golden  Milestone          151 

Kanawha.  Washington  was  what  would  now  be 
called  "  land-hungry,"  and  possessed  a  keen  eye  for 
the  choice  and  appropriation  of  the  rich  black  bot- 
tom lands  along  the  rivers  of  the  western  country. 
His  experience  as  a  land-surveyor — a  position  to 
which  he  had  in  his  youth  been  licensed  by  William 
and  Mary  College — had  educated  both  eye  and 
judgment  in  the  discovery  of  soils  and  locations 
adapted  to  agriculture,  while  the  generous  scale  on 
which  the  life  at  Mount  Vernon  was  laid  out  com- 
pelled him  to  husband  and  enlarge  his  resources  in 
every  legitimate  way  possible.  It  is  curious  to  read 
his  responses  to  would-be  borrowers  who,  presum- 
ing on  the  lavish  hospitality  that  prevailed  at  Mount 
Vernon,  wrote  to  ask  sums  ranging  from  twenty  to 
five  hundred  pounds.  Mrs.  Washington's  two  hun- 
dred or  three  hundred  negroes  were  hardly  suffi- 
cient to  run  the  various  plantations,  and  there  are 
occasional  references  to  the  purchase  of  skilled 
labourers,  masons,  blacksmiths,  carpenters,  and  the 
like — whose  "  likeliness  "  can  be  turned  to  the  profit 
of  the  estate. 

Washington  did  not  touch  tobacco  in  any  shape 
or  form,  but  his  farmer's  instinct  was  much  con- 
centrated on  the  cultivation  of  the  weed,  which, 
besides  the  fragrant  leaf,  turned  out  the  crop  of 
"  barons  of  the  Potomac "  who  made  this  lordly 
river  celebrated. 

As  there  were  few  towns  in  Virginia  then  worth 
speaking  of,  Washington's  letters  to  his  agents 
abound  in  directions  to  sail  for  the  Potomac  River, 


152  George  Washington 

"  which  flows  past  my  seat,"  and  not  to  the  York  or 
Rappahannock,  where  Mrs.  Washington's  relatives 
reside;  the  anchorage  at  Mount  Vernon  being  par- 
ticularly good,  free  from  wind,  and  sheltered  from 
weather  vicissitudes. 

The  goods  that  came  from  London  frequently 
arrived  at  the  wrong  landing,  variously  damaged  or 
mutilated,  in  bad  condition  owing  to  hurried  disem- 
barkation or  careless  packing.  During  this  con- 
templative stage  of  his  existence,  the  Colonel  found 
time  to  order,  from  a  London  art  dealer,  plaster 
busts  of  Alexander,  Julius  Caesar,  Prince  Eugene, 
the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  and  the  King  of  Prussia ; 
adding  to  this  formidable  list  of  military  heroes, 
gentler  concessions  to  the  fair  sex  in  the  shape  of 
groups  of  Bacchus  and  Flora,  "  Lyons  "  rampant  or 
otherwise  for  the  chimneypiece,  and  a  long  list  of 
literary  celebrities,  such  as  Chaucer,  Spenser,  Shak- 
spere,  and  certain  Greek  and  Roman  poets.  Among 
these  details  a  green  silk  "  Saque  "  of  Mrs.  Wash- 
ington's finds  lodgment,  which  is  to  be  re-dyed  and 
made  over  or  "  turned  into  a  genteel  night-gown." 

The  sylvan  chronicle  moves  quaintly  on,  and  em- 
braces among  much  else  the  following : 

"  Went  a  fox  huntg.  with  Lord  Fairfax  and  Colo. 
Fairfax,  and  my  Br.  Catchd.  2  Foxes.  Began  to 
gather  corn  at  the  Mill. 

"23.  Went  a  huntg.  again  with  Lord  Fairfax  and 
his  Brother,  and  Col.  Fairfax.  Catchd.  nothing  that 
we  knew  of.  A  fox  was  started. 


The  Golden   Milestone          153 

"  24.  Mr.  Robt.  Alexander  here ;  Went  into  the 
Neck. 

"  25.  Mr.  Bryan  Fairfax,  as  also  Messrs.  Grayson 
and  Phil.  Alexander,  came  here  by  sunrise.  Hunted 
and  catchd.  a  fox  with  these  and  my  Lord  his  Bro.  and 
Colo.  Fairfax,  all  of  whom  with  Mrs.  Fx.  and  Mr. 
Wetson  ( ?)  of  Engd  dined  here. 

"  26.  Hunted  again  in  the  above  Compa.  but  catchd 
nothing. 

"  27.    Went  to  Church. 

"  28.    Went  to  the  Vestry  at  Pohick  Church. 

"29.  Went  a  Huntg.  with  Lord  Fairfax  etc. 
Catchd  a  Fox. 

"  30.  At  home  all  day.  Colo.  Mason  and  Mr.  Cock- 
burne  came  in  the  evening. 

"  DECEMBER 

"  i.  Went  to  the  Election  of  Burgesses  for  this 
County  and  was  there,  with  Colo.  West  chosen. 
Stayd  all  Night  to  a  Ball  wch.  I  had  given. 

"  2.  Returnd  home  after  dinner,  accompanied  by 
Colo.  Mason,  Mr.  Cockburn  and  Messrs.  Henderson 
Ross  and  Lawson. 

"  3.  Went  a  fox  huntg.  in  Company  with  Lord  and 
Colo.  Fairfax,  Captn.  McCarty  and  Messrs.  Hender- 
son and  Ross.  Started  nothing.  My  Br.  came  in  ye 
afternoon."  x 

In  1772,  a  famous  portrait-painter  comes  along, 
and  Charles  Wilson  Peale  paints  for  us  the  well- 
known  portrait  of  Washington  as  Colonel  of  the 
22nd  Virginia  regiment,  in  blue  coat  faced  with 

1  Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  ii,  p.  255. 


154  George  Washington 

scarlet,  "  Wolfe  "  hat,  sash,  and  gorget — a  picture 
now  hanging  in  the  chapel  of  Washington  and  Lee 
University  at  Lexington,  Virginia.  Peale  also 
painted  charming  portraits  of  Mrs.  Washington  and 
her  daughter  and  son,  still  owned  by  descendants  of 
the  family.  Washington  writes  humorously  of  the 
sittings : 

"To  DR.  BOUCHER 
"  Mount  Vernon,  2ist  May,  1772. 
"  Inclination  having  yielded  to   Importunity,   I  am 
now  contrary  to  all  expectation  under  the  hands  of  Mr. 
Peale;  but  in  so  grave — so  sullen  a  mood — and  now 
and  then  under  the  influence  of  Morpheus,  when  some 
critical  strokes  are  making,  that  I  fancy  the  skill  of 
this  Gentleman's  Pencil,  will  be  put  to  it,  in  describing 
to  the  World  what  manner  of  man  I  am."  * 

Thus  in  easy  round  of  work,  exercise,  and  enter- 
tainment, life  on  the  Potomac  in  the  sixties  wagged 
along,  filled  with  the  busy  nothings  of  rural  exist- 
ence on  a  great  plantation ;  the  clatter  of  horse  and 
hounds  rang  over  the  clear  frosty  hills,  as  the  fox- 
hunting cavalcade,  headed  by  Washington  on 
"  Blueskin,"  and  Billy  Lee  on  "  Chickling,"  thun- 
dered over  hill  and  dale  after  the  grey  foxes  that 
"  Vulcan,"  "  Music,"  or  "  Sweet  Lips  "  had  started 
from  their  woodland  lairs.  Frosty  Januarys  faded 
into  flowering  Mays,  and  the  bright  Virginian  sum- 
mers ripened  into  those  exquisite  Octobers  that  sage 
meteorologists,  like  Burnaby,  Fithian,  Robert  Bever- 

1Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  ii,  p.  349. 


The  Golden  Milestone          155 

ley,  and  Thomas  Jefferson,  set  down  in  the  weather 
tables  or  their  diaries  as  the  fairest  in  the  world — 
"  the  season  of  sweet  savours."  Twice  a  year,  the 
great  ships  from  London  dropped  anchor  in  the 
river  opposite  the  mansion,  and  unloaded  the  bales 
and  boxes  consigned  to  its  owner. 

The  rippling  smoothness  of  the  chronicle  is  occa- 
sionally interrupted  by  an  entry  of  illness,  a  record 
of  a  fortnight's  absence  at  the  Warm  Springs  in 
Berkeley  County,  in  search  of  health,  an  exchange 
of  courtesies  with  Governor  Eden,  Lord  Dunmore 
(who  arrived  from  New  York  in  1772,  an  ominous 
forerunner  of  Revolution),  or  the  Calverts,  or  deep 
solicitude  about  "  Jackie  "  Custis,  the  "  son-in-law  " 
as  Washington  quaintly  calls  him,  who  is  wholly 
given  to  "  horses,  dogs,  and  guns,"  and  has  pre- 
maturely taken  it  into  his  head  to  fall  in  love  with 
pretty  Miss  Calvert,  lineal  descendant  of  the  Lords 
Baltimore.  Washington  hastily  rides  to  New  York 
and  enters  the  young  scapegrace  at  King's  College, 
in  the  hope  of  counteracting  the  fair  Marylander's 
charms ;  but  all  to  no  avail.  He  explains  to  the 
young  lady's  father  that  Custis  has  an  ample  for- 
tune of  £8,000  "  upon  bond,"  fifteen  thousand  acres 
at  or  near  Williamsburg,  and  two  or  three  hundred 
negroes,  besides  his  ultimate  interest  in  his  mother' «f 
dower;  but  to  Dr.  Boucher,  that  the  boy  at  seven- 
teen is  almost  totally  ignorant  of  arithmetic,  knows 
no  Latin  or  Greek,  and  should  know  French  "  which 
is  now  deemed  one  of  the  indispensable  polite 
accomplishments  of  the  day." 


156  George  Washington 

It  was  during  this  period  that  he  became  deeply 
interested  in  a  project  to  drain  the  Dismal  Swamp, 
rode  down  thither  on  an  exploring  expedition,  and 
examined  the  great  morass  almost  as  fully  as 
Colonel  Byrd  of  Westover  had  done  in  1728,  when 
establishing  the  dividing  line  between  Virginia  and 
North  Carolina.  Later  on  in  his  life,  he  became 
profoundly  interested  in  improving  the  navigation 
of  the  Potomac,  and  in  the  James  River  and  Kana- 
wha  Canal  project,  designed  to  connect  the  interior 
water-system  of  the  continent  with  the  ocean. 

Lord  Dunmore  sought  his  advice  and  companion- 
ship, in  a  proposed  journey  of  inspection  and  ex- 
ploitation to  the  Ohio  Valley  where,  in  the  vicinity 
of  Louisville  and  Cincinnati,  titles  from  his  land- 
patents  still  exist. 

There  is  no  evidence  in  Washington's  letters, 
how  he  viewed  the  Mephistophelean  character  of 
this  last  royal  Governor  of  Virginia;  nor  whether 
he  credited  the  accounts  of  his  arrogance  and  ava- 
rice. The  letters  from  the  Colonel  to  the  Earl  are 
couched  in  punctilious  forms  that  seem  to  have  bean 
learned  from  some  old-world  manual,  almost  obse- 
quious in  their  long-drawn-out  circumlocutions  of 
respect. 

When  Sunday  came,  a  great  stillness  and  rev- 
erence fell  over  Mount  Vernon.  Washington  never 
received  visitors  on  Sunday  at  this  time.  Over  in 
the  noble  old  woods  skirting  his  estates,  six  or  seven 
miles  distant,  lay  Pohick  Church,  where  the  Rev. 
Charles  Green  had  officiated,  as  Rector  of  Truro 


The  Golden  Milestone          157 

Parish,  from  1738  to  1765.  Of  this  fine  old  colo- 
nial church,  Bishop  Meade  gives  an  interesting 
account : 

"  The  Old  Pohick  Church  was  a  frame  building, 
and  occupied  a  site  on  the  south  side  of  Pohick  Run, 
and  about  two  miles  from  the  present,  which  is  on  the 
north  side  of  the  run.  When  it  was  no  longer  fit  for 
use,  it  is  said  the  parishioners  were  called  together  to 
determine  on  the  locality  of  the  new  church,  when 
George  Mason,  the  compatriot  of  Washington,  and 
senior  vestryman,  advocated  the  old  site,  pleading 
that  it  was  the  house  in  which  their  fathers  wor- 
shipped, and  that  the  graves  of  many  were  around  it, 
while  Washington  and  others  advocated  a  more  cen- 
tral and  convenient  one.  The  question  was  left  unset- 
tled and  another  meeting  for  its  decision  appointed. 
Meanwhile  Washington  surveyed  the  neighbourhood, 
and  marked  the  houses  and  distances  on  a  well  drawn 
map,  and,  when  the  day  of  decision  arrived,  met  all 
the  arguments  of  his  opponent  by  presenting  this  paper, 
and  thus  carried  his  point.  In  place  of  any  descrip- 
tion of  this  house  in  its  past  or  present  condition,  I 
offer  the  following  report  of  a  visit  made  to  it  in  1837 : 

"  My  next  visit  was  to  Pohick  Church,  in  the  vicinity 
of  Mount  Vernon,  the  seat  of  General  Washington. 
I  designed  to  perform  service  there  on  Saturday  as 
well  as  Sunday,  but  through  some  mistake  no  notice 
was  given  for  the  former  day.  The  weather  indeed 
was  such  as  to  prevent  the  assembling  of  any  but  those 
who  prize  such  occasions  so  much  as  to  be  deterred 
only  by  very  strong  considerations.  It  was  still  rain- 
ing when  I  approached  the  house,  and  found  no  one 
there.  The  wide-open  doors  invited  me  to  enter, — 


158  George  Washington 

as  they  do  invite,  day  and  night,  through  the  year,  not 
only  the  passing  traveller,  but  every  beast  of  the  field 
and  fowl  of  the  air.  These  latter,  however,  seem 
to  have  reverenced  the  house  of  God,  since  few  marks 
of  their  pollution  are  to  be  seen  throughout  it.  The 
interior  of  the  house,  having  been  well  built,  is  still 
good.  The  chancel,  Communion-table,  and  tables  of 
the  law,  etc.,  are  still  there  and  in  good  order.  The 
roof  only  is  decaying ;  and  at  the  time  I  was  there  the 
rain  was  dropping  on  these  sacred  places  and  on  other 
parts  of  the  house.  On  the  doors  of  the  pews,  in  gilt 
letters,  are  still  to  be  seen  the  names  of  the  principal 
families  which  once  occupied  them.  How  could  I, 
while  for  at  least  an  hour  traversing  those  long  aisles, 
entering  the  sacred  chancel,  ascending  the  lofty  pulpit, 
forbear  to  ask,  And  is  this  the  house  of  God  which 
was  built  by  the  Washingtons,  the  Masons,  the  Mc- 
Cartys,  the  Grahams,  the  Lewises,  the  Fairfaxes  ? — the 
house  in  which  they  used  to  worship  the  God  of  our 
fathers  according  to  the  venerable  forms  of  the  Epis- 
copal Church, — and  some  of  whose  names  are  yet  to 
be  seen  on  the  doors  of  those  now  deserted  pews?  Is 
this  also  destined  to  moulder  piecemeal  away,  or,  when 
some  signal  is  given,  to  become  the  prey  of  spoilers, 
and  to  be  carried  hither  and  thither  and  applied  to 
every  purpose  under  heaven? 

"  Surely  patriotism,  or  reverence  for  the  greatest 
of  patriots,  if  not  religion,  might  be  effectually  ap- 
pealed to  in  behalf  of  this  one  temple  of  God.  The 
particular  location  of  it  is  to  be  ascribed  to  Washing- 
ton, who,  being  an  active  member  of  the  vestry  when 
it  was  under  consideration  and  in  dispute  where  it 
should  be  placed,  carefully  surveyed  the  whole  parish, 


The  Golden  Milestone          159 

and,  drawing  an  accurate  and  handsome  map  of  it 
with  his  own  hand,  showed  clearly  where  the  claims 
of  justice  and  the  interests  of  religion  required  its 
erection. 

"  It  was  to  this  church  that  Washington  for  some 
years  regularly  repaired,  at  a  distance  of  six  or  seven 
miles,  never  permitting  any  company  to  prevent  the 
regular  observance  of  the  Lord's  day."  1 

After  the  Revolution,  from  1785,  the  family 
became  regular  attendants  of  Christ's  Church,  Alex- 
andria, where  their  pew  is  still  shown. 

There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  Washing- 
ton was,  from  the  beginning,  a  devout  believer  in 
Christianity;  his  letters  abound  in  evidences  of  this 
belief  and  are  full  of  invocations  to  Divine  Provi- 
dence. His  public  orders  and  commands  to  his 
soldiers,  during  the  war,  constantly  reminded  them 
of  their  dependence  on  God,  the  necessity  of  suppli- 
cating His  mercy  and  help  in  the  great  struggle, 
and  the  duty  of  observing  Sunday.  For  a  long  time 
he  was  a  communicant  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  a 
vestryman  of  Truro  Parish,  and  diligent  in  the  read- 
ing of  sermons  and  good  books  at  home  when  the 
weather  was  too  inclement  for  church.  He  was, 
indeed,  markedly  punctilious  in  the  observance  of 
all  his  religious  duties.  He  fasted  when  a  day  of 
public  humiliation,  prayer,  and  fasting  was  ordered 
by  the  burgesses  on  the  eve  of  the  Revolution :  his 
entry  in  his  diary  is :  "  Fasted  all  day." 

1  Bishop  Meade,  Old  Churches  and  Families  of  Virginia, 
vol.  ii,  p.  227. 


160  George  Washington 

Mrs.  Washington  lived  and  died  a  devout  com- 
municant of  the  Church;  and,  while  her  husband 
did  not  take  the  learned  interest  in  its  theology  and 
dogma  that  Jefferson  took,  there  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  his  life  was  continually  ordered  by  its 
precepts,  from  the  time  he  imbibed  them  from  the 
teachings  of  his  excellent  mother. 

"  The  fierce  light  that  beats  against  a  throne  " 
has  shone  with  implacable  inquisitiveness  into  every 
nook  and  cranny  of  Washington's  soul,  but  has 
searched  in  vain  to  find  him  anything  but  a  plain, 
high-minded,  reverential  Christian  gentleman.  Jef- 
ferson may  veil  himself  in  verbal  evasions,  ingenu- 
ities, and  ambiguities,  due  to  over-much  erudition 
and  a  morbid  aversion  to  the  methods  of  the  Inqui- 
sition; but  the  first  President  of  the  United  States 
never  juggled  with  words,  never  quibbled  with  his 
conscience,  and  everywhere  and  on  all  occasions 
showed  himself  a  simple,  plain-spoken,  unostenta- 
tious believer  in  the  Christian  religion. 

During  these  idyllic  days  of  plantation  life,  how- 
ever, chequered  with  their  manifold  vicissitudes  of 
light  and  shade,  fell  one  great  shadow  across  the 
threshold  of  Mount  Vernon :  Patsy  Custis,  beloved 
namesake  and  daughter  of  Martha  Washington, 
was  seized  with  an  attack  of  constitutional  malady 
of  the  heart,  and  suddenly  expired  in  the  bloom  of 
her  fair  young  life.  The  grief  caused  by  this  be- 
reavement shows  pathetically  in  a  letter  of  Wash- 
ington, addressed  to  a  friend: 


MARTHA  WASHINGTON. 
From  the  portrait  by  Gilbert  Stuart. 


The  Golden  Milestone         161 

"  To  COLONEL  BASSETT 

"  Mount  Vernon,  2Oth  June,  1773. 
"  DEAR  SIR, 

"It  is  an  easier  matter  to  conceive,  than  to  describe 
the  distress  of  this  Family ;  especially  that  of  the  un- 
happy Parent  of  our  Dear  Patsy  Custis,  when  I  in- 
form you  that  yesterday  removed  the  Sweet  Innocent 
Girl  Entered  [sic]  into  a  more  happy  and  peaceful 
abode  than  any  she  has  met  with  in  the  afflicted  Path 
she  hitherto  has  trod.1 

"  She  arose  from  Dinner  about  four  o'clock  in  better 
health  and  spirits  than  she  appeared  to  have  been 
in  for  some  time;  soon  after  which  she  was  seized 
with  one  of  her  usual  Fits,  and  expired  in  it,  in  less 
than  two  minutes  without  uttering  a  word,  a  groan,  or 
scarce  a  sigh. — This  sudden,  and  unexpected  blow,  I 
scarce  need  add  has  almost  reduced  my  poor  Wife  to 
the  lowest  ebb  of  Misery;  which  is  encreas'd  by  the 
absence  of  her  son,  (whom  I  have  just  fixed  at  the 
College  in  New  York  from  whence  I  returned  the  8th 
Inst)  and  want  of  the  balmy  consolation  of  her  Rela- 
tions ;  which  leads  me  more  than  ever  to  wish  she  could 
see  them,  and  that  I  was  Master  of  Arguments  pow- 
erful enough  to  prevail  upon  Mrs.  Dandridge  [her 
mother]  to  make  this  place  her  entire  and  absolute 
home.  I  should  think  as  she  lives  a  lonesome  life 
(Betsey  being  married)  it  might  suit  her  well,  and 
be  agreeable,  both  to  herself  and  my  Wife,  to  me  most 
assuredly  it  would. 

"  I  do  not  purpose  to  add  more  at  present,  the  end 

"  19.    About  five  o'clock  poor  Patsy  Custis  died  suddenly." 
— From  an  interleaved  Almanac. 


1 62  George  Washington 

of  my  writing  being  only  to  inform  you  of  this  un- 
happy change."  x 

In  the  course  of  these  halcyon  years,  Washington 
had  several  times  written  that  "  the  grim  King  of 
Terrors  "  had  come  very  near  to  him,  but  never  be- 
fore had  he  actually  entered  the  Mount  Vernon 
household,  much  less  snatched  away  its  fairest 
blossom. 

Mrs.  Washington  was  to  survive  both  her  hus- 
band and  all  her  children. 

1  Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  ii,  pp.  384-385. 


CHAPTER  X 

OLD  WILLIAMSBURG 

*  (r  I^HE  most  ancient  and  loyal  colony  of  Vir- 
1       ginia  "  has  had,  in  its  day  (of  three  hundred 
years),  three  different  capitals,  corresponding  to  its 
three  periods  of  infancy,  youth,  and  maturity. 

Of  the  first — historic  Jamestown — only  an  ivied 
church  tower  and  a  garland  of  immortal  memories 
remain  to  tell  the  noble  tale  of  Virginia  colonisation, 
historic  tatters,  tasselled  with  innumerable  threads 
of  incident  that  cling  to  Virginia's  earliest  history. 
The  eager  seas,  that  brought  the  merchant  adven- 
turers to  the  New  World,  ate  perpetually  at  the 
shores  of  the  island  city,  and  threatened  to  engulf 
it  in  absolute  obliteration,  when  pious  hands,  in  our 
day,  rescued  it  from  this  ignoble  end.  For  more 
than  ninety  years  it  was  the  heart  and  soul  of  Vir- 
ginia affairs,  ravaged  by  fire  and  flood,  encom- 
passed with  bloody  hostilities  on  all  sides,  from  the 
beginning,  the  centre  of  a  long  and  tangled  history, 
the  apparently  indestructible  old  town  crumbled  and 
rose  again,  rose  and  crumbled  though  breathing  in 
great  breaths  of  air  from  the  ocean  that  stretched 
almost  to  its  feet,  and  refusing  stubbornly  to  give 
up  its  semi-royal  existence  until,  in  1698,  the  re- 
morseless Nicholson  tore  it  up  by  the  roots  and 

163 


1 64  George  Washington 

transplanted  the  ancient  shoot  to  Williamsburg,  a 
few  miles  inland. 

The  Virginia  of  John  Smith,  of  Sir  Francis 
Wyatt,  of  the  fiery  Berkeley,  the  tragic  Virginia  of 
Powhatan,  the  Lady  Pocahontas,  and  Nathaniel  Ba- 
con, began  and  ended  about  the  spacious  bays  and 
rivers  amid  which  Jamestown  sat  enthroned,  look- 
ing wistfully  over  its  blue  waters,  seemingly  per- 
plexed at  its  own  turbulent  existence. 

Then,  as  the  advancing  tide  of  settlement  and 
immigration  marched  upward  and  inward,  toward 
the  rippling  hills  that  outlined  the  western  horizon 
in  blue,  a  change  was  made,  and  a  new  capital,  the 
capital  to  be  for  eighty  years  to  come,  sprang  up 
among  the  splendid  live-oaks  and  lindens  (planted 
by  Dunmore)  between  the  York  and  the  James,  in 
the  Middle  Plantation. 

"  Williamsburg,"  says  Burnaby,  "  is  the  capital 
of  Virginia:  it  is  situated  between  two  creeks,  one 
falling  into  James,  the  other  into  York  river ;  and  is 
built  nearly  due  east  and  west.  The  distance  of 
each  landing-place  is  something  more  than  a  mile 
from  the  town ;  which,  with  the  disadvantage  of  not 
being  able  to  bring  up  large  vessels,  is  the  reason 
of  its  not  having  increased  so  fast  as  might  have 
been  expected.  It  consists  of  about  two  hundred 
houses,  does  not  contain  more  than  one  thousand 
souls,  whites  and  negroes;  and  is  far  from  being  a 
place  of  any  consequence.  It  is  regularly  laid  out 
in  parallel  streets,  intersected  by  others  at  right 
angles;  has  a  handsome  square  in  the  centre, 


Old   Williamsburg  165 

through  which  runs  the  principal  street,  one  of  the 
most  spacious  in  North  America,  three  quarters  of 
a  mile  in  length,  and  above  a  hundred  feet  wide.  At 
the  opposite  ends  of  this  street  are  two  public  build- 
ings, the  college  and  the  capitol :  and  although  the 
houses  are  of  wood,  covered  with  shingles,  and  but 
indifferently  built,  the  whole  makes  a  handsome 
appearance.  There  are  few  public  edifices  that  de- 
serve to  be  taken  notice  of;  those,  which  I  have 
mentioned,  are  the  principal ;  and  they  are  far  from 
being  magnificent.  The  governor's  palace  is  toler- 
ably good,  one  of  the  best  upon  the  continent;  but 
the  church,  the  prison,  and  the  other  buildings, 
are  all  of  them  extremely  indifferent.  The  streets 
are  not  paved,  and  are  consequently  very  dusty,  the 
soil  hereabout  consisting  chiefly  of  sand :  however, 
the  situation  of  Williamsburg  has  one  advantage 
which  few  or  no  places  in  these  lower  parts  have, 
that  of  being  free  from  mosquitoes.  Upon  the 
whole,  it  is  an  agreeable  residence;  there  are  ten  or 
twelve  gentlemen's  families  constantly  residing  in 
it,  besides  merchants  and  tradesmen :  and  at  the 
times  of  the  assemblies,  and  general  courts,  it  is 
crowded  with  the  gentry  of  the  country :  on  those 
occasions  there  are  balls  and  other  amusements ;  but 
as  soon  as  the  business  is  finished,  they  return  to 
their  plantations;  and  the  town  is  in  a  manner 
deserted."  l 

"  I    arrived    at    Williamsburg    at    noon,"    says 

1  A.  Burnaby,  Travels  Through  North  America,  p.  33. 


1 66  George  Washington 

Lossing,  "  and  proceeded  immediately  to  search  out 
the  interesting  localities  of  that  ancient  and  earliest 
incorporated  town  in  Virginia.  They  are  chiefly 
upon  the  main  street,  a  broad  avenue  pleasantly 
shaded,  and  almost  as  quiet  as  a  rural  lane.  I  first 
took  a  hasty  stroll  upon  the  spacious  green  in  front 
of  William  and  Mary  College,  the  oldest  literary 
institution  in  America  except  Harvard  University. 
The  entrance  to  the  green  is  flanked  by  stately  live- 
oaks,  cheering  the  visitor  in  winter  with  their  ever- 
green foliage.  In  the  centre  of  the  green  stands  the 
mutilated  statue  of  Lord  Botetourt,  the  best  beloved 
of  the  colonial  governors.  This  statue  was  erected 
in  the  old  capitol  in  1774,  and  in  1797  it  was  re- 
moved to  its  present  position.  I  did  not  make  a 
sketch  of  it,  because  a  student  at  the  college  prom- 
ised to  hand  me  one  made  by  his  own  pencil  before 
I  left  the  place.  He  neglected  to  do  so,  and  there- 
fore I  can  give  nothing  pictorially  of  '  the  good 
Governor  Botetourt/  the  predecessor  of  Dunmore. 

"  I  next  visited  the  remains  of  the  palace  of  Lord 
Dunmore,  the  last  royal  governor  of  Virginia.  It  is 
situated  at  the  head  of  a  broad  and  beautiful  court,  ex- 
tending northward  from  the  main  street,  in  front  of 
the  City  Hotel.  The  palace  was  constructed  of  brick. 
The  centre  building  was  accidentally  destroyed  by  fire, 
while  occupied  by  the  French  troops  immediately  after 
the  surrender  of  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown.  It  was 
seventy-four  feet  long  and  sixty-eight  feet  wide,  and 
occupied  the  site  of  the  old  palace  of  Governor  Spots- 
wood,  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century.  At- 


Old   Williamsburg  167 

tached  to  the  palace  were  three  hundred  and  sixty  acres 
of  land,  beautifully  laid  out  in  gardens,  parks,  carriage- 
ways, and  a  bowling-green.  Dunmore  imported  some 
fine  linden-trees  from  Scotland,  one  of  which,  still  in 
existence,  is  one  of  the  finest  specimens  of  that  tree  I 
have  ever  seen.  In  vice-regal  pomp  and  pageantry 
Dunmore  attempted  to  reign  among  the  plain  repub- 
licans of  Virginia ;  but  his  day  of  grandeur  and  power 
soon  passed  away,  and  the  sun  of  his  official  glory  set 
amid  darkest  clouds.  All  that  remains  of  this  spacious 
edifice  are  the  two  wings ;  the  one  on  the  right  was  the 
office,  the  one  on  the  left  was  the  guard-house." 

"  A  little  eastward  of  Palace  Street  or  Court,  is  the 
public  square,  on  which  area  are  two  relics  of  the  olden 
time,  Bruton  Church,  a  cruciform  structure  with  a  stee- 
ple, and  the  old  Magazine,  an  octagon  building,  erected 
during  the  administration  of  Governor  Spotswood. 
The  sides  of  the  latter  are  each  twelve  feet  in  horizon- 
tal extent.  Surrounding  it,  also  in  octagon  form,  is  a 
massive  brick  wall,  which  was  constructed  when  the 
building  was  erected.  This  wall  is  somewhat  dilapi- 
dated. The  building  was  occupied  as  a  Baptist  meeting- 
house when  I  visited  Williamsburg,  and  I  trust  it  may 
never  fall  before  the  hand  of  improvement,  for  it  has 
an  historical  value  in  the  minds  of  all  Americans.  The 
events  which  hallow  it  will  be  noticed  presently. 

"  On  the  square  fronting  the  magazine  is  the  court- 
house. It  stands  upon  the  site  of  the  old  capitol,  in 
which  occurred  many  interesting  events  connected  with 
the  history  of  our  War  for  Independence.  The  present 
structure  was  erected  over  the  ashes  of  the  old  one, 
which  was  burned  in  1832.  Around  it  are  a  few  of  the 


1 68  George   Washington 

old  bricks,  half  buried  in  the  green  sward,  and  these 
compose  the  only  remains  of  the  Old  Capitol."  1 

Hugh  Jones  says : 

"  The  first  Metropolis,  James  Town,  was  built  in  the 
most  convenient  Place  for  Trade  and  Security  against 
the  Indians,  but  often  received  much  Damage,  being 
twice  burnt  down;  after  which  it  never  recovered  its 
Perfection,  consisting  at  present  of  nothing  but  Abun- 
dance of  Brick  Rubbish,  and  three  or  four  good  in- 
habited Houses,  tho'  the  Parish  is  of  pretty  large  Ex- 
tent, but  less  than  others.  When  the  State  House  and 
Prison  were  burnt  down,  Governor  Nicholson  removed 
the  Residence  of  the  Governor,  with  the  Meeting  of 
General  Courts  and  General  Assemblies  to  Middle 
Plantation,  seven  Miles  from  James  Town,  in  a  health- 
ier and  more  convenient  Place,  and  freer  from  the  An- 
noyance of  Muskettoes. 

"  Here  he  laid  out  the  City  of  Williamsburgh  (in  the 
Form  of  a  Cypher,  made  of  W.  and  M.)  on  a  Ridge 
at  the  Head  Springs  of  two  great  Creeks,  one  running 
into  James,  and  the  other  into  York  River,  which  are 
each  navigable  for  sloops,  within  a  Mile  of  the  Town ; 
at  the  Head  of  which  Creeks  are  good  Landings,  and 
Lots  laid  out,  and  Dwelling  Houses  and  Ware  Houses 
built ;  so  that  this  Town  is  most  conveniently  situated, 
in  the  Middle  of  the  lower  Part  of  Virginia,  command- 
ing two  noble  Rivers,  not  above  four  Miles  from  either, 
and  is  much  more  commodious  and  healthful,  than  if 
built  upon  a  River. 

"  Publick  Buildings  here  of  Note,  are  the  College, 
the  Capitol,  Governor's  House,  and  the  Church.  The 

'Lossing,  Field  Book  of  the  Revolution,  vol.  ii,  p.  262. 


Old   Williamsburg-  169 

Latitude  of  the  College  at  Williamsburgh,  to  the  best 
of  my  Observation,  is  37°.  21'.  North. 

"  The  Front  which  looks  due  East  is  double,  and  is 
136  Foot  long.  It  is  a  lofty  Pile  of  Brick  Building 
adorn'd  with  a  Cupola.  At  the  North  End  runs  back 
a  large  Wing,  which  is  a  handsome  Hall,  answerable 
to  which  the  Chapel  is  to  be  built ;  and  there  is  a  spa- 
cious Piazza  on  the  West  side,  from  one  Wing  to  the 
other.  It  is  approached  by  a  good  Walk,  and  a  grand 
Entrance  by  Steps,  with  good  Courts  and  Gardens 
about  it,  with  a  good  House  and  Apartments  for  the 
Indian  Master^  and  his  Scholars,  and  Out-Houses ;  and 
a  large  Pasture  enclosed  like  a  Park  with  about  150 
Acres  of  Land  adjoining,  for  occasional  Uses. 

"  The  Building  is  beautiful  and  commodious,  being 
first  modelled  by  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  adapted  to  the 
Nature  of  the  Country  by  the  Gentlemen  there;  and 
since  it  was  burnt  down,  it  has  been  rebuilt,  and  nicely 
contrived,  altered  and  adorned  by  the  ingenious  Direc- 
tion of  Governor  Spottswood;  and  is  not  altogether 
unlike  Chelsea  Hospital. 

"  Fronting  the  College  at  near  its  whole  Breadth,  is 
extended  a  noble  Street  mathematically  streight  (for 
the  first  Design  of  the  Town's  Form  is  changed  to  a 
much  better)  just  three  Quarters  of  a  Mile  in  Length; 
At  the  other  End  of  which  stands  the  Capitol,  a  noble, 
beautiful,  and  commodious  Pile  as  any  of  its  Kind,  built 
at  the  Cost  of  the  late  Queen,  and  by  the  Direction  of 
the  Governor. 

"  The  Building  is  in  the  Form  of  an  H  nearly ;  the 
Secretary's  Office,  and  the  General  Court  taking  up 
one  Side  below  Stairs ;  the  Middle  being  an  handsom 
Portico  leading  to  the  Clerk  of  the  Assembly's  Office, 


170  George  Washington 

and  the  House  of  Burgesses  on  the  other  Side ;  which 
last  is  not  unlike  the  House  of  Commons. 

"  In  each  Wing  is  a  good  Stair  Case,  one  leading  to 
the  Council  Chamber,  where  the  Governor  and  Council 
sit  in  very  great  State,  in  Imitation  of  the  King  and 
Council,  or  the  Lord  Chancellor  and  House  of  Lords. 

"  The  whole  is  surrounded  with  a  neat  Area,  encom- 
passed with  a  good  Wall,  and  near  it  is  a  strong  sweet 
Prison  for  Criminals; 

"  The  Cause  of  my  being  so  particular  in  describing 
the  Capitol  is,  because  it  is  the  best  and  most  commo- 
dious Pile  of  its  Kind  that  I  have  seen  or  heard  of. 

"  Because  the  State  House,  James  Town,  and  the 
College  have  been  burnt  down,  therefore  is  prohibited 
in  the  Capitol  the  Use  of  Fire,  Candles,  and  Tobacco. 

"  At  the  Capitol,  at  publick  Times,  may  be  seen  a 
great  Number  of  handsome,  well-dress'd,  compleat 
Gentlemen.  And  at  the  Governor's  House  upon  Birth- 
Nights,  and  at  Balls  and  Assemblies,  I  have  seen  as 
fine  an  Appearance,  as  good  Diversion,  and  as  splendid 
Entertainments  in  Governor  Spot-wood's  Time,  as  I 
have  seen  any  where  else. 

"  Here  dwell  several  very  good  Families,  and  more 
reside  here  in  their  own  Houses  at  publick  Times. 

'  They  live  in  the  same  neat  Manner,  dress  after 
the  same  Modes,  and  behave  themselves  exactly  as  the 
Gentry  in  London;  most  Families  of  any  Note  having 
a  Coach,  Chariot,  Berlin,  or  Chaise. 

"  Thus  they  dwell  comfortably,  genteely,  pleasantly, 
and  plentifully  in  this  delightful,  healthful,  and  (I 
hope)  thriving  City  of  Williamsburgh."  1 

'The  seat  of  our  government  had  been  originally 
1  Hugh  Jones,  The  Present  State  of  Virginia,  p.  25. 


Old   Williamsburgf  171 

fixed  in  the  peninsula  of  Jamestown,  the  first  settle- 
ment of  the  colonists;  and  had  been  afterwards  re- 
moved a  few  miles  inland  to  Williamsburg.  But  this 
was  at  a  time  when  our  settlements  had  not  extended 
beyond  the  tide  water.  Now  they  had  crossed  the 
Alleghany;  and  the  centre  of  population  was  very  far 
removed  from  what  it  had  been.  Yet  Williamsburg 
was  still  the  depository  of  our  archives,  the  habitual 
residence  of  the  Governor  and  many  other  of  the  public 
functionaries,  the  established  place  for  the  sessions  of 
the  legislature,  and  the  magazine  of  our  military  stores  : 
and  it's  situation  was  so  exposed  that  it  might  be  taken 
at  any  time  in  war,  and,  at  this  time  particularly,  an 
enemy  might  in  the  night  run  up  either  of  the  rivers 
between  which  it  lies,  land  a  force  above,  and  take 
possession  of  the  place,  without  the  possibility  of  saving 
either  persons  or  things.  I  had  proposed  it's  removal 
so  early  as  Octob.  '76.  but  it  did  not  prevail  until  the 
session  of  May.  '79."  1 

This  was  the  year  1760,  the  year  in  which 
Patrick  Henry — aged  twenty-four — went  to  Wil- 
liamsburg to  be  examined  in  the  law,  and  narrowly 
escaped  being  "  plucked  "  by  the  board  of  examiners, 
who  happened  to  be  a  famous  group — Peyton  and 
John  Randolph  (attorney-general),  George  Wythe, 
and  Robert  Carter  Nicholas.  Jefferson  had  only 
lately  become  a  matriculate.  His  first  letter  in 
Ford's  edition  of  his  voluminous  correspondence — 
probably  the  first  of  the  twenty-five  or  thirty 
thousand  letters  still  surviving — was  devoted  to  this 
subject. 

1  P.  L.  Ford,  Writings  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  vol.  i,  p.  55. 


172  George  Washington 

"  To  JOHN  HARVEY 

"  Shadwell,  Jan.  14,  1760. 

"  SIR, — I  was  at  Colo.  Peter  Randolph's  about  a 
Fortnight  ago,  and  my  Schooling  falling  into  Dis- 
course, he  said  he  thought  it  would  be  to  my  Advantage 
to  go  to  the  College,  and  was  desirous  I  should  go,  as 
indeed  I  am  myself  for  several  Reasons.  In  the  first 
place  as  long  as  I  stay  at  the  Mountains  The  Loss  of 
one  fourth  of  my  Time  is  inevitable,  by  Company's 
coming  here  and  detaining  me  from  School.  And  like- 
wise my  Absence  will  in  a  great  Measure  put  a  Stop 
to  so  much  Company,  and  by  that  Means  lessen  the 
Expences  of  the  Estate  in  House-Keeping.  And  on 
the  other  Hand  by  going  to  the  College,  I  shall  get  a 
more  universal  Acquaintance,  which  may  hereafter  be 
serviceable  to  me ;  and  I  suppose  I  can  pursue  my 
Studies  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  as  well  there  as  here, 
and  likewise  learn  something  of  the  Mathematics.  I 
shall  be  glad  of  your  opinion."  1 

From  the  very  beginning,  Old  Williamsburg  had 
been  wrapped  in  a  literary  and  legal  flavour — 
"  Devilsburg,"  Jefferson  playfully  calls  it  in  his 
letters  to  John  Page,  in  allusion  to  the  ennui  he 
suffered  there,  or  to  the  tricksy  pranks  of  the  stu- 
dents, wishing  "  Coke,  the  dull  old  scoundrel,  at 
the  devil  "  when  the  image  of  the  fair  "  Belinda  " 
(Rebecca  Burwell)  dances  teasingly  before  his 
imagination.  The  Orange  and  the  Stuart  were 
amicably  wound  together  in  the  architectural  cypher 
of  W  and  M,  in  the  shape  of  which  the  elder  town 

1  P-  L-  Ford,  Writings  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  vol.  i,  p.  340. 


Old   Williamsburg-  173 

had  been  originally  laid  out;  its  ancient  library  was 
full  of  books  and  MSS.,  presented  by  kings,  arch- 
bishops, bishops,  and  scholars;  the  name  of  the 
famous  Robert  Boyle  was  inseparably  connected 
with  its  Indian  school,  and  generous  donations  were 
made  to  it  by  Government,  in  consideration  of  two 
copies  of  Latin  verses  annually  prepared  and  pre- 
sented to  it  by  the  President  and  Fellows. 

Far  back  in  the  grey  years  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury— in  1693,  when  Voltaire  was  still  unborn,  and 
Racine  was  not  far  from  his  death-bed — the  College 
cf  William  and  Mary  had  been  founded  by  a  royal 
grant  of  twenty  thousand  acres  of  good  Virginia 
land  and  £1985  in  money,  while  an  ample  tax  on  to- 
bacco (the  crowned  weed,  blazoned  on  the  earliest 
colonial  seal  of  Virginia),  and  abundant  fees  from 
the  land-surveyor's  office  were  added,  in  perpetuity, 
to  maintain  the  president  and  six  professors.  The 
gifts  and  remembrances  of  the  charitable,  interested 
in  Indian  and  colonial  education,  flowed  into  the  cof- 
fers of  the  college,  which,  in  1776,  had  risen  to  be 
the  richest  in  North  America.  Younger  than  Har- 
vard by  a  few  months  only,  it  soon  grew  to  be  a 
living  and  audacious  refutation  of  the  view  of  that 
choleric  old  "  Know  Nothing,"  Sir  William  Berke- 
ley, who  not  long  before  its  foundation  had  writ- 
ten home  to  London : 

"  The  same  course  is  taken  here,  for  instructing  the 
people,  as  there  is  in  England :  Out  of  towns  every 
man  instructs  his  own  children  according  to  his  own 


174  George  Washington 

ability.  We  have  forty-eight  parishes,  and  our  minis- 
ters are  well  paid,  and  by  my  consent  should  be  better, 
if  they  would  pray  oftener,  and  preach  less.  But  as  of 
all  commodities,  so  of  this,  the  worst  are  sent  to  us,  and 
we  have  few  that  we  can  boast  of,  since  the  persecution 
in  Cromwell's  tyranny  drove  divers  worthy  men  thither. 
Yet,  I  thank  God,  there  are  no  free  schools  nor  print- 
ing ;  and  I  hope  we  shall  not  have  these  hundred  years. 
For  learning  has  brought  disobedience,  and  heresy,  and 
sects,  into  the  world,  and  printing  has  divulged  them 
and  libels  against  the  best  governments;  God  keep  us 
from  both ! 

"  WILLIAM  BERKELEY. 
"  VIRGINIA,  20  June,  1671." 

Gutenberg  and  Faust  might  turn  in  their  graves 
for  all  the  old  Governor  cared,  if  only  "  Virginia, 
earth's  only  Paradise,"  as  Drayton  sang  in  his  fa- 
mous ode,  remained  free  from  their  "  pesky"  inven- 
tion. The  pink-blossomed  tobacco,  that  waved  like 
an  emerald  sea  in  and  around  the  Virginia  planta- 
tions; the  hogshead  of  generous  liquors,  imported 
from  vine-clad  tropic  islands;  the  skins  and  furs 
that  clothed  in  velvet  the  thousands  of  shy  sylvan 
creatures  that  roamed  the  Virginian  woods,  were  to 
coin  themselves  into  golden  pence  and  pounds,  and 
still  more  golden  brains  of  men  to  become  for  ever 
celebrated  in  the  annals  of  the  New  World. 

Old  William  and  Mary  arose,  a  daring  incarna- 
tion of  the  resentment  felt  at  the  bluster  of  this  vice- 
regal tyrant  who  ruled  Virginia  with  a  rod  of  iron, 
and  wrote  testy  communications  to  the  officials  at 


Old  Williamsburg  175 

St.  James's  on  the  "state"  of  the  colony.  Out  of  its 
portals,  streamed  in  the  course  of  time,  no  less  than 
four  hundred  alumni  who  distinguished  themselves 
in  all  the  walks  of  life — three  presidents  of  the 
United  States,  four  signers  of  the  Declaration,  five 
Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court,  sixteen  United  States 
senators,  four  speakers  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives. The  brilliant  and  speaking  likenesses  that 
graced  the  chapel  and  library  walls,  executed  by  the 
brushes  of  famous  artists,  were  hardly  more  remark- 
able than  the  groups  of  illustrious  men  who,  in 
silken  hose  and  powdered  hair,  in  cap  and  gown  and 
velvet  doublet,  gathered  in  picture-like  twos  and 
threes  about  the  shady  promenades  of  the  palace 
grounds,  in  the  H-shaped  precincts  of  the  ancient 
House  of  Burgesses,  or  at  the  memorable  fire- 
side conversazioni  in  the  Apollo  Room  of  the  old 
Raleigh  Tavern. 

From  generation  to  generation  old  Virginia  pre- 
sented herself  at  the  Chancellor's  office  of  William 
and  Mary  College,  and  became  duly  matriculated 
as  the  intellectual  guest  of  "  the  Nestor  of  Ameri- 
can Colleges."  Hither,  George  Washington  came 
as  a  mere  lad  to  get  his  land-surveyor's  license,  to 
be  followed  in  a  few  years  by  Thomas  Jefferson 
and  Zachary  Taylor  (grandfather  of  the  Presi- 
dent) on  the  same  errand.  Here,  the  intellect  of 
John  Marshall  was  refined  to  that  wondrous  judg- 
ment, which  impelled  an  eminent  historian 1  to 

1John  Fiske. 


176  George  Washington 

include  him  with  those  other  Virginians — Wash- 
ington, Jefferson,  Madison — among  the  five  men 
(Hamilton  being  the  fifth)  who  were  the  soul  of 
the  Revolution.  Peyton  Randolph,  president  of  the 
first  Continental  Congress  in  1774,  had,  doubtless, 
presided  over  many  a  boyish  debate  in  the  college 
where  Lord  Botetourt  had  established  gold  medals 
for  Latin  oratory,  and  prizes  for  attendance  on 
chapel,  before  he  assumed  the  august  role  of  pre- 
siding officer  of  this  celebrated  assembly. 

Many  a  venerable  oak  on  the  college  green,  or  in 
the  vicinity  of  the  quaint  "  Powder  Horn,"  or  at 
the  corners  of  what  was  afterwards  called  Lord 
Dunmore's  Palace  (built  in  the  year  Washington 
was  born)  must  have  rustled  sympathetically  in 
Dodona  fashion,  as  the  young  gallants  walked  to 
and  fro  beneath  them  after  the  gorgeous  balls  at 
the  governor's  and  talked  "  treason  "  of  the  Patrick 
Henry  type,  discussed  the  "  Writs  of  Assistance  " 
and  the  impending  Stamp  Act,  composed  epigrams 
in  the  style  of  Colonel  William  Byrd,  or  trans- 
lated bits  of  Ovid  in  the  fluent  fashion  of  George 
Sandys.  The  unpaved  streets  of  the  venerable 
burgh  would  become  a  veritable  Campo  Santo  of 
colonial  legend,  if  their  dust  could  become  articulate, 
and  whisper  the  secrets  buried  in  the  yellow  sand  of 
the  Middle  Plantation — the  secrets  of  the  "  Virginia 
Comedians  "  who  presented  there,  in  the  primitive 
playhouse,  the  latest  "  thing  "  from  Vauxhall — the 
secrets  that  now  piled  themselves  mountain-high 
during  the  administrations  of  Nicholson,  and  Spots- 


Old  Williamsburg1  177 

wood,  "  Knight  of  the  Golden  Horse  Shoe,"  Gooch 
and  Dinwiddie,  and  smiling  Botetourt  and  bitter- 
tongued  Dunmore,  who  burnt  himself  into  Vir- 
ginia's memory  deeper  than  any  other  governor, 
through  his  devastation  of  Norfolk. 

This  noble  old  Williamsburg,  of  high  descent  and 
lofty  lineage,  formed  the  jewelled  clasp  between  the 
old  and  the  new  Virginia,  between  blood-stained 
Jamestown,  the  first  capital,  and  civic  Richmond, 
whither  the  capital  was  removed  in  1779.  Never, 
perhaps,  in  its  palmiest  days  possessing  a  population 
of  more  than  twenty-five  hundred,  the  city  of  Wil- 
liam and  Mary  enjoys  a  political  distinction  unparal- 
leled in  the  history  of  the  United  States.  For  eighty 
years,  moreover,  its  beaux  and  belles  made  of  it  the 
social  "  cynosure  of  all  eyes,"  "  the  glass  of  fashion 
and  the  mould  of  form,"  a  small  woodland  Ver- 
sailles, where  a  miniature  court  flitted  hither  and 
thither  on  its  vice-regal  nothings,  a  busybody  world 
of  gay  triviality  and  harmless  gossip  where,  between- 
whiles,  Shawnees  and  Mingoes  and  Delawares  are  to 
be  educated  on  Boyle's  foundation  (immediately  to 
relapse  into  barbarism  as  soon  as  they  returned  to 
their  native  forests,  remarks  "  that  merry  old  Vir- 
ginian," Colonel  Byrd).  Colonel  and  Mrs.  Wash- 
ington and  their  charming  children  left  the  stately 
mansion  of  Mount  Vernon  many  a  time,  between 
1760  and  1774,  to  take  part  in  the  pomp  and  pag- 
eantry of  the  vice-regal  court,  "  step  the  minuet  " 
in  company  with  Fauquier,  courteous  Botetourt,  or 
the  Earl  and  Countess  of  Dunmore,  or  prance  on 


1 78  George  Washing-ton 

thoroughbred  horses  about  the  Williamsburg  lanes 
and  roads,  fragrant,  in  season,  with  golden  mantle 
of  yellow  jessamine,  loops  and  ropes  of  flowering 
grape,  or  sheets  of  goldenrod  flinging  its  yellow 
dust  to  the  wind. 

The  Colonel,  doubtless,  kept  a  watchful  eye  on 
the  fashions  of  the  Middle  Plantation  gentry,  ap- 
peared in  his  "  genteel  suit  of  superfine  broadcloth," 
made  the  sagacious  observation  to  his  London  cor- 
respondent that,  "  whatever  might  be  the  reason, 
his  clothes  had  never  fitted  him,"  no  doubt  made 
mental  comparisons  between  himself  and  the  ele- 
gantly fitted  preux  chevaliers  of  the  court,  and  then 
proceeded  to  order  those  curious  and  dainty  things 
for  the  two  "  Patsys,"  in  which  his  circumstantial 
invoices  abound. 

All  this  aristocracy  and  education  of  the  planters' 
commonwealth  were  thus  held,  socially  and  politi- 
cally, together  by  the  "  jewelled  clasp,"  for  here 
assembled  the  hundred  or  so  fresh-cheeked,  high- 
coloured  representatives  of  the  150,000  white  Vir- 
ginians, who  had  then  spread  themselves  over  the 
rural  infinitude  called  "  Virginia  " ;  here,  a  never- 
ending  succession  of  burgesses  and  their  wives  and 
daughters  gathered  in  the  seasons  of  assembly,  and 
contributed  a  brilliant  society  of  which  one  catches 
piquant  glimpses  in  Fithian's  Diary;  incipient 
"  Sons  of  Liberty  "  began  to  sound  their  alarum- 
bells  of  resistance  and  revolution  as  the  decades 
moved  swiftly  along;  and  hither,  one  d'ay,  trotted 
on  his  forest-bred  nag  a  young  man  from  Hanover 


Old   Williamsburgr  179 

County  who,  after  one  month's  study  of  Coke  on 
Littleton,  and  the  Virginia  Statutes,  had  the  im- 
pudence to  present  himself  for  examination  in  the 
law. 

This  was  the  kinsman  of  Lord  Brougham,  and 
Robertson  the  historian,  Patrick  Henry,  an  ill-clad, 
gawky,  wild-eyed  but  genial  son  of  the  woods,  of 
very  definite  kindred  (as  it  seemed,  afterward)  but 
undefined  ambition,  by  no  means  the  "  Jamestown 
diamond  "  even  his  friends,  at  first,  took  him  to  be, 
yet  unpromising  in  the  extreme  to  look  at. 

Four  years  younger  than  Washington,  seven 
years  younger  than  Jefferson,  Henry  was  fre- 
quently in  the  latter  s  company,  as  Jefferson  pur- 
sued his  two  years'  course  at  the  college,  and, 
doubtless,  often  enough  met  Washington,  when  the 
Boanerges  of  Hanover  County  entered  the  House 
of  Burgesses  in  1765. 

A  more  illustrious  triumvirate.  America  has 
never  had  to  show — the  Arm,  the  Pen,  the  Voice  of 
the  Revolution. 

The  genius  of  a  Plutarch  would  be  required  to 
characterise  these  three  men  in  such  lines  of  fire  as 
they  deserve.  As  they  calmly  walked  the  three 
quarters  of  a  mile  that  covered  the  Duke  of  Glouces- 
ter Street,  from  the  "  beautiful  and  commodious  " 
capitol  (as  old  Hugh  Jones  described  it)  to  the 
spacious  green  in  front  of  the  college,  discussing  the 
Parson's  case  or  Charles  Townshend's  Revenue 
Acts,  or  the  constantly  up-flaming  Stamp  Act,  or 
the  20,000,000  of  dollars  the  French  and  Indian 


i8o  George  Washington 

wars  had  already  cost  the  colonies,  no  one  could 
have  predicted,  that  the  tallest  of  the  three  young 
men  would  become  the  first  man  of  his  age,  the 
second  would  write  the  document  that  was  to  be- 
come the  creed  and  classic  of  all  modern  republics, 
and  the  third  would  incarnate  the  very  voice  of 
Revolution  itself,  and  send  it  like  a  trail  of  fire  from 
one  end  of  the  land  to  the  other,  never  to  be  extin- 
guished. A  vast  potentiality  lay  latent  in  the  three, 
for  two  of  those  unpretending  burgesses  were  to  sit 
in  the  presidential  chair,  two  were  to  become  gov- 
ernors of  the  commonwealth,  and  one  was  to  be  the 
first  American  Governor  of  Virginia  elected  by  the 
suffrages  of  his  fellow-citizens.  The  three  summed 
up  in  themselves  the  essence  of  the  whole  "  Ameri- 
can question,"  then  germinating  in  subterranean 
ways  all  over  the  country:  Jefferson  the  student, 
wondrously  learned,  wise,  discriminating,  abso- 
lutely without  the  "  gift  of  gab  "  which  his  friend 
Henry  possessed  in  such  opulence,  faltering  and 
confused  when  he  got  up  on  his  legs,  yet  even  then 
in  possession  of  that  eloquence  of  diction,  which 
made  John  Adams  insist  on  his  writing  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence;  Washington,  the  man  of 
action,  strenuous,  stern,  falteringly  modest  in  speech 
when  he  stood  in  legislature  or  congress,  yet  thrill- 
ing with  vital  force  when  he  stood  on  the  field  of 
battle,  and  "  swearing  like  an  angel  from  Heaven  " 
when  things  went  wrong  (so  his  friend  General 
Charles  Scott  reported) — patient,  silent,  reserved, 
except  when  the  inner  volcanic  flame  burst  through 


Old   Williamsburg-  181 

his  flashing  eyes  in  some  stupendous  conflict; 
Henry,  the  "  forest-born  Demosthenes,"  whose  im- 
passioned nature  had  gathered  up  into  itself  all  the 
sweet,  wild  strength  of  the  woods  and  winds  and 
wilderness,  to  break  forth  some  day  in  marvellously 
musical  words,  and  the  play  of  a  "  wonder-working 
fancy." 

And  when  one  considers,  that  these  were  but 
three  of  the  wonderful  men  who  then  frequented 
the  goodly  foundation  of  William  and  Mary,  speci- 
mens of  the  splendid  men  whose  souls  Seymour, 
Attorney-general  of  Great  Britain,  had  consigned  to 
perdition,  when  worthy  Master  Blair  had  applied  to 
him  for  a  charter :  meekly  affirming  that  they  too — 
the  Virginians — had  souls  to  save:  "  Souls?  souls? 

D their  souls !  let  them  make  tobacco !  " — 

when  we  consider  that  the  old  brick  palace  of 
Dunmore  and  the  Raleigh  Tavern  rooms,  the  coun- 
cil-chamber and  the  college  lecture-rooms,  the  very 
sanctuaries  of  old  Bruton  Church  (built  in  1700) 
and  the  "  miniature  Westminster  Abbey "  of  the 
chapel,  had  resounded  with  the  voices  and  presence 
of  scores  of  such  men,  it  is  well  to  pause  a  moment, 
and  remember  that  it  was  the  Williamsburg  spirit 
that  largely  ruled  the  Revolutionary  conventions, 
that  wrote  the  declaration  of  rights,  that  defied  the 
fleets  and  armies  of  Great  Britain,  and  that  brought 
the  mighty  struggle  to  a  glorious  end.  Yorktown 
and  Williamsburg  were  never  more  than  a  few  miles 
apart,  yet  in  their  spirit  they  were  absolutely  joined. 

It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  the  capitol  at  Williams- 


1 82  George  Washington 

burg  where  the  burgesses  met  was  stigmatised  as 
"  the  heart  of  rebellion,"  and  that  the  foe  thought 
to  tear  out  this  heart  in  Tarleton's  time  when 
American,  English,  and  French  troops  successively 
occupied  the  beautifully  laid-out  grounds  of  the 
palace. 

Then  the  migrant  capital  moved  to  Richmond, 
in  1779,  when  Jefferson  was  governor,  and  housed 
itself  in  the  picturesque  city  near  the  falls  of  the 
James,  which  Colonel  Byrd  of  Westover  had 
founded  more  than  forty  years  before.  The  James, 
bursting  over  the  foaming  rocks  above  the  lovely 
site  of  the  present  Hollywood,  fitly  symbolised  the 
agitation  of  the  times,  while  its  expansion  below 
into  a  broad  and  noble  river,  where  giant  battleships 
were  to  shoot  down  the  launchways  at  busy  Hamp- 
ton Roads,  prophetically  suggested  the  broadening 
currents  of  Virginia  history,  and  its  expansion  into 
a  world-influence. 

Call  it  a  chrism,  call  it  a  curse,  fire  was  the  element 
that  stuck  closer  than  a  brother  to  Williamsburg, ! 
from  the  first — fire  of  speech,  fire  of  eloquence; 
fiery  tongues  actually  seemed  to  hover,  incandescent,' 
over  the  hundred  burgesses,  and  sting  and  quicken 
them  into  imprudent  speech;  and  actual  flames, 
crude,  destructive,  terrible,  scourged  the  place 
from  the  year  1705  to  the  year  1861,  when  Federal 
troops  burnt  the  venerable  college  buildings,  and 
relic-hunters  tore  away  the  metal  inscription  from 
the  pedestal  of  beloved  Lord  Botetourt's  statue.  It 
was  conceived  and  born  out  of  the  great  intellectual 


GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 

From  the  painting  by  Rembrandt  Peale.  Reproduced  by  permission  of  C.  Klackner,  N.  Y. 
Copyright,  1894. 


Old   Williamsburg  183 

conflagration  of  1688,  and  it  continued  to  burn  in 
one  way  or  another,  actually  or  metaphorically,  all 
through  its  history,  its  very  ashes  possessing  an  in- 
candescent character  that  flamed  up  anew,  as  soon 
as  some  accident  (like  that  of  the  French  occupation 
in  1781)  or  incendiary  torch  had  laid  this  or  that 
one  of  its  monumental  buildings  in  the  dust.  It 
stood  for  the  Truth,  which  cannot  be  burned,  for 
Liberty,  which  is  indestructible,  for  Culture,  which 
can  never  die;  for  here,  in  1776,  originated  the  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  Society  in  its  parent  chapter,  and 
straight  from  Williamsburg  went  Thomas  Jefferson, 
full  of  his  idea  of  founding  a  great  State  University, 
realised  in  1825,  by  the  opening  of  the  University 
of  Virginia  while  he  was  yet  alive. 

Generation  after  generation  of  scholars  in  their 
caps  and  gowns,  since  the  first  commencement  in 
1700,  have  for  two  hundred  years  streamed  out  of 
the  portals  of  William  and  Mary  College,  illustrating 
every  walk  of  life — science,  law,  history,  literature, 
divinity,  the  arts;  their  lofty,  independent  spirit 
animated  the  debates  of  Congress,  when  a  congress 
came  to  be;  the  law-books  in  the  rich  old  library, 
where  precious  volumes  shone  resplendent  with  the 
coats-of-arms  of  royal  governors  and  generous 
donors, — especially  the  volumes  on  English  consti- 
tutional law, — became  vitally  incarnate,  and  were 
born  to  vivid  resurrection  in  the  form  of  Peyton 
and  Edmund  and  John  Randolph,  George  Wythe 
and  Edmund  Pendleton,  Richard  Bland,  Robert 


184  George  Washington 

Carter  Nicholas,  Jefferson,  Henry,  and  scores  of 
others. 

In  these  men,  the  types  of  the  Revolution  reached 
their  most  finished  mould,  and  stand  forth,  a  bril- 
liant gallery  of  faces,  unexampled  for  strength, 
originality,  genius,  and  energy,  only  paralleled  by 
the  group  of  gladiators  who,  almost  at  this  mo- 
ment, stood  on  the  other  side  of  the  sea,  like  some 
marble  group  of  monumental  sculpture,  and  de- 
fended the  same  constitutional  principles  for  which 
the  Americans  fought — Burke,  Chatham,  and  Fox. 
A  mighty  spirit  of  freedom  was  welling  up  from 
the  very  earth  in  North  America,  and  finding  lips 
and  voices  in  Massachusetts,  in  New  York,  in 
Pennsylvania,  and,  above  all,  in  Virginia,  whose 
warm  blood  had  always  bubbled  and  battled  for 
freedom,  and  at  last  poured  itself  out  freely  on  a 
hundred  battle-fields,  in  defence  of  constitutional 
rights. 

"  I  have  never  had  a  will  of  my  own,"  wrote 
Washington  to  Colonel  Bouquet,  "  where  a  duty 
was  demanded  of  me  " ;  and  this  sublime  sense  of 
duty  actuated  Washington's  contemporaries  almost 
to  a  man.  The  ancient  charters  and  privileges  of 
the  colonies  breathed  the  same  spirit  of  broad  hu- 
manitarianism  and  brotherhood,  and  the  obligation 
to  help  savage  and  civilised  alike,  as  far  as  it  was 
possible  to  help  them;  and  the  very  foundation  of 
William  and  Mary  College,  and  the  wealth  that 
flowed  to  it,  rooted  themselves  in  the  same  lofty 
philanthropies,  the  same  recognition  of  the  primal 


Old  Williamsburg  185 

rights  of  man.  The  Indian  queen,  holding  forth 
her  twig  of  tobacco  leaf  and  blossom,  blazoned  on 
the  early  colonial  seal,  typified  not  only  a  mighty 
gift  of  alleviation  to  mankind,  but  the  right  of  a 
noble,  uncivilised  race  to  advance  to  the  foot  of  the 
throne,  and  claim  succour  from  an  enlightened 
sovereign. 

When  the  gay  cavalcade  of  the  "  Knights  of  the 
Golden  Horse  Shoe  "  trotted  out  of  Old  Williams- 
burg,  under  the  gallant  Spotswood,  and  climbed 
the  Alleghanies,  they  peered  over  and  out  from  their 
"  peak  of  Darien,"  into  the  illimitable  region  where 
Washington  later  saw  thousands  and  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  buffalo,  soon  to  be  replaced  by  the  millions 
of  human  beings,  who  had  drawn  their  blood  and 
culture  from  such  institutions  as  this  venerable 
college,  and  were  soon  to  spread,  like  a  sea,  over  the 
region  which  one  of  the  famous  trio  before  men- 
tioned was  to  gain  for  the  United  States,  in  1804, 
forty  years  from  the  period  under  consideration; 
and  over  all  this  the  benign  sun  of  mutual  recogni- 
tion, sovereign  personal  right,  and  individual  con- 
science was  to  shine. 

Graphically  has  John  Esten  Cooke  pictured  the 
force  and  influence  of  this  one  institution,  when  he 
says: 

"  Almost  every  Virginian  of  any  eminence  in  the 
eighteenth  century  had  been  trained  for  his  work  in  the 
world  within  its  walls.  It  gave  twenty-seven  of  its 
students  to  the  army  in  the  Revolution ;  two  Attorney- 
Generals  to  the  United  States ;  it  sent  out  nearly  twenty 


1 86  George  Washing-ton 

members  of  Congress,  fifteen  United  States  Senators, 
seventeen  Governors,  thirty-seven  Judges,  a  Lieutenant- 
General  and  other  high  officers  to  the  army,  two  Com- 
modores to  the  navy,  twelve  Professors,  four  signers  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  seven  Cabinet  of- 
ficers, the  chief  draughtsman  and  author  of  the  Con- 
stitution, Edmund  Randolph,  the  most  eminent  of  the 
Chief  Justices,  John  Marshall,  and  three  Presidents  of 
the  United  States.  And  this  list,  honorable  as  it  is,  by 
no  means  exhausts  the  number  of  really  eminent  and  in- 
fluential men  who  owed  the  formation  and  development 
of  their  intellects  and  characters  to  '  William  and 
Mary.'  In  the  long  list  of  students,  preserved  from 
the  year  1720  to  the  present  time,  will  be  found  a  great 
array  of  names  holding  a  very  high  rank  in  the  common- 
wealth of  Virginia  and  the  States  of  the  South  and 
West — in  the  pulpit,  at  the  bar,  and  in  the  local  legisla- 
tures. These,  without  attaining  the  eminence  of  those 
first  mentioned,  were  the  most  prominent  citizens  of  the 
communities  in  which  they  lived,  and  were  chiefly  in- 
strumental in  giving  character  and  direction  to  social 
and  political  affairs.  One  and  all,  they  received  from 
their  education  at  the  old  ante-revolutionary  college  the 
stamp  and  mould  of  character  which  made  them  able 
and  valuable  citizens — leaders,  indeed,  in  opinion  and 
action,  whenever  intellect  and  virtue  were  needed  for 
important  public  affairs."  1 

Of  the  vanished  life  of  the  place,  Bishop  Meade 
wrote : 

"  Williamsburg  was  once  the  miniature  copy  of  the 
Court  of  St.  James,  somewhat  aping  the  manners  of 

1Scribner's  Monthly,  November,  1875,  P-  i- 


Old   Williamsburg  187 

that  royal  place,  while  the  old  church  grave-yard  and 
the  college  chapel  were — si  licet  cum  magnis  componere 
parva — the  Westminster  Abbey  and  the  St.  Paul's  of 
London,  where  the  great  ones  were  interred.  The  first 
person  who  came  to  sleep  beneath  the  pavement  of  this 
American  Westminster  Abbey  was  Sir  John  Randolph, 
who  had  espoused  the  English  side  during  the  Revolu- 
tion and  gone  into  exile ;  and  he  was  followed  by  his  two 
sons,  John  Randolph,  formerly  the  King's  Attorney- 
General,  and  Peyton  Randolph,  President  of  the  first 
Congress,  and  by  Bishop  Madison,  first  Bishop  of  Vir- 
ginia ;  Chancellor  Nelson,  and  it  is  believed  Lord  Bote- 
tourt,  the  royal  governor,  whose  statue  was  in  1797 
placed  upon  the  college  green.  Botetourt  had  been  a 
warm  friend  of  the  Virginians  and  the  Virginia  college ; 
and,  as  he  had  expressed  a  desire  to  be  buried  in  the 
colony,  his  friend,  the  Duke  of  Beaufort,  wrote,  after 
his  death,  requesting  that  '  the  president,  etc.,  of  the 
college  will  permit  me  to  erect  a  monument  near  the 
place  where  he  was  buried.'  This  phrase  is  supposed 
to  indicate  that  the  old  chapel  of  William  and  Mary  con- 
tained the  last  remains  of  the  most  popular  and  beloved 
of  the  royal  governors."  * 

The  associations  of  the  old  capitol  grow  more 
piquant  and  complicated  as  one  advances  into  its 
story,  tangled  as  the  original  cypher-monogram  of 
the  plan  on  which  it  was  originally  laid  out. 

Says  Cooke : 

"  Old  Bruton  Church  was  for  a  long  time  the  resort 
of  the  students  on  days  of  public  worship.  At  the  Old 
Capitol  they  witnessed  the  determined  stand  made  by 

1  Scribner's  Monthly,  November,  1875,  p.  7. 


1 88  George  Washington 

the  Burgesses  against  the  encroachments  of  the  Crown. 
At  the  Old  Palace  they  appeared  annually  on  the  5th  of 
November  to  present  their  copies  of  Latin  verses  to  the 
Governor,  as  the  representative  of  the  King  of  Eng- 
land, the  head  of  the  institution.  At  the  old  Raleigh 
Tavern  they  met  to  found  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society, 
or  to  join  in  the  festivities  of  the  fine  assemblies  held 
in  the  historic  '  Apollo  Room '  in  the  building.  When 
the  revolutionary  outburst  came,  the  great  drama  was 
played  before  them,  and  they  mingled  in  their  '  aca- 
demical dresses '  with  the  crowds  which  cheered  the 
worthy  Lord  Botetourt  as  he  rode  in  his  fine  chariot, 
drawn  by  six  white  horses,  to  the  Capitol,  or  hooted  the 
unpopular  Lord  Dunmore  as  he  fled  to  his  man-of-war 
in  the  river  after  rifling  the  Old  Magazine  of  its 
powder. 

"  Bruton  Church,  which  is  still  standing,  is  one  of  the 
oldest  of  these  historic  buildings,  and  took  its  name 
from  the  parish — the  college  having  been  built,  it  will 
be  remembered,  on  land  '  lying  and  being  in  the  parish 
of  Bruton.'  It  was  erected  in  1678,  and  became  a  promi- 
nent feature  of  the  colonial  capital — a  sort  of  miniature 
St.  Paul's.  The  Royal  Governor  had  his  fine  pew  there 
under  its  canopy,  and  around  him  on  Sunday  were 
grouped  the  most  distinguished  citizens  of  the  place, 
the  Councilors,  Judges,  and  Burgesses.  The  old 
Bruton  Church  Communion  Service  is  still  in  existence. 
The  cup  and  paten  are  of  gold,  and  were  presented  to 
the  church  by  Sir  John  Page.  The  flagon,  chalice,  and 
plate  are  of  silver,  and  were  presented  by  King  George 
III.,  whose  coat-of-arms  is  carved  upon  them."  * 

The  second  capitol  became  famous  after  the  de- 
1  Scribner's  Monthly,  November,  1875,  P-  I0- 


Old   Williamsburg  189 

struction,  by  fire,  of  the  first.    Several  of  the  scenes 
it  witnessed  are  described  by  Cooke : 

"  The  second  building  soon  took  its  place,  and  wit- 
nessed the  tumultuous  scenes  of  1774  and  the  succeed- 
ing years.  It  had  already  echoed  with  the  thunders  of 
the  great  debate  on  the  Stamp  Act  in  1765,  when  Pat- 
rick Henry,  a  raw  countryman,  startled  the  Burgesses 
with  his  grand  outburst,  '  Caesar  had  his  Brutus,'  etc., 
with  which  all  are  familiar.  In  the  lobby,  listening,  was 
a  young  student  of  William  and  Mary  College,  named 
Thomas  Jefferson,  who  afterward  characterised  the 
debate  as  most  '  bloody,'  and  described  the  sudden 
appearance  of  Edmund  Randolph,  as  he  came  out  of  the 
Chamber,  declaring,  with  a  violent  oath,  that  he  would 
have  given  five  hundred  guineas  for  a  single  vote, 
which  it  seems  would  have  defeated  the  famous  resolu- 
tions of  Henry.  The  Old  Capitol  was  the  scene  of  all 
the  grand  official  pageants  of  that  time.  The  royal 
governors,  always  fond  of  imitating  regal  proceedings, 
had  the  habit  of  riding  from  the  '  Palace  '  to  the  Capitol 
in  their  coaches  drawn  by  four  or  even  six  horses,  aim- 
ing thus  to  dazzle  the  eyes  of  the  '  provincials  ' ;  and, 
once  enthroned  in  their  Council  Chamber,  they  seem  to 
have  felt  that  for  the  moment  they  were  the  real  Kings 
of  Virginia.  The  old  chronicles  leave  no  doubt  of  the 
lordly  deportment  of  the  royal  governors  on  these  oc- 
casions. '  Yesterday,  between  three  and  four  o'clock 
P.M./  says  the  Virginia  Gazette  for  May  27,  1774, '  the 
Right  Honourable  the  Earl  of  Dunmore  sent  a  message 
to  the  Honourable  the  House  of  Burgesses,  by  the  Clerk 
of  the  Council,  requiring  their  immediate  attendance  in 
the  Council  Chamber,  when  his  Excellency  spoke  to 
them  as  follows.'  His  address  was  that  of  Charles  I.  to 


i  go  George  Washington 

his  parliament,  demanding  the  five  members.  The 
Burgesses  had  '  reflected  '  on  the  King  and  Parliament, 
and  were  sternly  declared  to  be  '  dissolved.'  And  the 
men  who  were  thus  imperiously  addressed,  who  were 
dismissed  by  his  Lordship  with  marks  of  his  cold  dis- 
pleasure, as  a  schoolmaster  dismisses  his  schoolboys, 
were  Jefferson,  Henry,  Mason,  and  Pendleton — the 
greatest  names,  in  a  word,  of  the  time."  1 

Thus  was  old  Williamsburg  intertwined,  like  its 
own  monogram,  with  every  fibre  of  the  ancient 
commonwealth's  life,  the  focus  and  fountain  of  that 
life  which  now  began  to  play  in  a  dazzling  stream 
of  new  forces,  kindling,  creative,  illuminative,  a 
measureless  energy  which,  when  turned  into  light, 
became  a  Niagara  whose  splendour  and  revelry  were 
seen  and  heard  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  The  era 
of  the  New  Forces  had  dawned. 

1Scribner's  Monthly,  November,  1875,  p.  n. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  NEW   FORCES 

ON  the  2Oth  of  September,   1765,  Washington 
wrote  to  Francis  Dandridge,  his  wife's  uncle, 
in  London : 

"  At  present  few  things  are  under  notice  of  my  ob- 
servation that  can  afford  you  any  amusement  in  the 
recital.  The  Stamp  Act,  imposed  on  the  colonies  by 
the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain,  engrosses  the  con- 
versation of  the  speculative  part  of  the  colonists,  who 
look  upon  this  unconstitutional  method  of  taxation,  as 
a  direful  attack  upon  their  liberties,  and  loudly  exclaim 
against  the  violation.  What  may  be  the  result  of  this, 
and  of  some  other  (I  think  I  may  add)  ill-judged 
measures,  I  will  not  undertake  to  determine ;  but  this 
I  may  venture  to  affirm,  that  the  advantage  accruing 
to  the  mother  country  will  fall  greatly  short  of  the  ex- 
pectations of  the  ministry ;  for  certain  it  is,  that  our 
whole  substance  does  already  in  a  manner  flow  to  Great 
Britain  and  that  whatsoever  contributes  to  lessen  our 
importations  must  be  hurtful  to  their  manufacturers. 
And  the  eyes  of  our  people,  already  beginning  to  open, 
will  perceive,  that  many  luxuries,  which  we  lavish  our 
substance  in  Great  Britain  for,  can  well  be  dispensed 
with,  whilst  the  necessaries  of  life  are  (mostly)  to  be 
had  within  ourselves.  This,  consequently,  will  intro- 
duce frugality,  and  be  a  necessary  stimulation  to  in- 
dustry. If  Great  Britain,  therefore,  loads  her  manu- 

i9r 


1 92  George  Washington 

facturies  with  heavy  taxes,  will  it  not  facilitate  these 
measures?  They  will  not  compel  us,  I  think,  to  give 
our  money  for  their  exports,  whether  we  will  or  not; 
and  certain  I  am,  none  of  their  traders  will  part  from 
them  without  a  valuable  consideration.  Where,  then, 
is  the  utility  of  these  restrictions  ? 

"  As  to  the  Stamp  Act,  taken  in  a  single  view,  one 
and  the  first  bad  consequence  attending  it,  I  take  to  be 
this,  our  courts  of  judicature  must  inevitably  be  shut 
up;  for  it  is  impossible  (or  next  of  kin  to  it),  under 
our  present  circumstances,  that  the  act  of  Parliament 
can  be  complied  \vith,  were  we  ever  so  willing  to  en- 
force the  execution ;  for,  not  to  say,  which  alone  would 
be  sufficient,  that  we  have  not  money  to  pay  the  stamps, 
there  are  many  other  cogent  reasons,  to  prevent  it ;  and 
if  a  stop  be  put  to  our  judicial  proceedings,  I  fancy  the 
merchants  of  Great  Britain,  trading  to  the  colonies, 
will  not  be  among  the  last  to  wish  for  a  repeal  of  it."  * 

Two  years  later,  in  1767,  he  wrote  to  Capel  &  Os- 
good  Hanbury: 

"  Unseasonable  as  it  may  be,  to  take  any  notice  of 
the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  at  this  time,  yet  I  cannot 
help  observing,  that  a  contrary  measure  would  have  in- 
troduced very  unhappy  consequences.  Those,  there- 
fore, who  wisely  foresaw  such  an  event,  and  were 
instrumental  in  procuring  the  repeal  of  the  act,  are,  in 
my  opinion,  deservedly  entitled  to  the  thanks  of  the 
well-wishers  to  Britain  and  her  colonies,  and  must  re- 
flect with  pleasure,  that,  through  their  means,  many 
scenes  of  confusion  and  distress  have  been  prevented. 
Mine  they  accordingly  have,  and  always  shall  have,  for 

1Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  ii,  pp.  209-210. 


The  New  Forces  193 

their  opposition  to  any  act  of  oppression ;  and  that  act 
could  be  looked  upon  in  no  other  light  by  every  person, 
who  would  view  it  in  its  proper  colors. 

"  I  could  wish  it  was  in  my  power  to  congratulate 
you  on  the  success  in  having  the  commercial  system  of 
these  colonies  put  upon  a  more  enlarged  and  extensive 
footing,  than  it  is;  because  I  am  well  satisfied,  that  it 
would  ultimately  redound  to  the  advantage  of  the 
mother  country,  so  long  as  the  colonies  pursue  trade 
and  agriculture,  and  would  be  an  effectual  let  to  manu- 
facturing among  them.  The  money,  therefore  which 
they  raise,  would  centre  in  Great  Britain,  as  certainly 
as  the  needle  will  settle  to  the  pole."  * 

Washington  to  Robert  Gary,  21  July,  1767: 

"  The  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  to  whatsoever  cause 
owing,  ought  much  to  be  rejoiced  at,  for  had  the  Par- 
liament of  Great  Britain  resolved  upon  enforcing  it, 
the  consequences,  I  conceive,  would  have  been  more 
direful  than  is  generally  apprehended,  both  to  the 
mother  country  and  her  colonies.  All,  therefore,  who 
were  instrumental  in  procuring  the  repeal,  are  entitled 
to  the  thanks  of  every  British  subject,  and  have  mine 
cordially."  2 

Governor  Fauquier  to  Earl  of  Halifax,  June  14, 
1765: 

"  Government  is  set  at  defiance,  not  having  strength 
enough  in  her  hands  to  enforce  obedience  to  the  laws 
of  the  community.  The  private  distress  which  every 

1  Ford,    Writings   of   George    Washington,  vol.    ii,   p.    210, 
note. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  211,  note. 


194  George  Washington 

man  feels,  increases  the  general  dissatisfaction  at  the 
duties  laid  by  the  stamp  act,  which  breaks  out,  and 
shews  itself  upon  every  trifling  occasion."  1 

"  This  engrossing  topic  of  conversation "  had, 
indeed,  "  engaged  all  the  speculative  minds  in  the 
colonies  "  with  a  preoccupation  that  was  never  again 
to  leave  it. 

"  This  is  the  way,"  wrote  John  Hughes,  in  Ban- 
croft,1 "  that  the  fire  began."  "  Virginia  rang  the 
alarm-bell  for  the  continent,"  cried  Bernard  to  Hali- 
fax. "  Virginians  fired  the  hearts  of  patriots  with 
an  eloquence  which  defied  royal  prerogatives  and 
patronage,  and  set  the  seal  of  lasting  pre-eminence 
on  William  and  Mary,  the  venerable  Nestor  of 
American  colleges,  in  which  they  had  imbibed  the 
highest  principles  of  liberty,  both  of  thought  and  of 
actions." 

"  Virginia  has  the  glory,"  said  John  Adams, 
"  with  posterity  of  beginning  with  the  resolutions 
against  the  stamp  act,  and  ending,  with  the  acts  of 
the  convention  of  May,  1786,  the  great  American 
Revolution." 

The  Stamp  Act,  indeed,  was  but  the  topmost  crest 
of  that  ocean  of  unrest  that  was  now  sweeping  over 
the  colonies.  These  infant  commonwealths  had 
grown  from  shiploads  to  plantations  or  settlement- 
groups,  crowned  and  accentuated  by  a  church  spire; 
from  these  to  "  hundreds,"  counties,  parishes,  pre- 

aFord,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  ii,  p.  210, 
note. 

*  Bancroft,  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  v,  p.  278. 


The  New  Forces  195 

cincts  over  which  vestries  or  selectmen  ruled  in 
ancient  English  wise  by  free  elective  franchise;  and 
there  ensued  the  swift  growth  and  amalgamation  of 
disunited  and  ever  warring  units,  heterogeneous  be- 
yond compare,  into  united  and  harmonious  wholes, 
whose  integrity  was  every  day  becoming  more  dense 
and  indivisible.  Whatever  differences  of  creed,  of 
culture,  of  race,  or  of  religion  might  have  existed 
when  the  Pilgrim  pioneers  first  set  foot  on  American 
soil,  fast  obliterated  themselves  in  the  new  condi- 
tions, and  became  as  indistinguishable  in  the  new 
life  as  the  track  of  tossing  and  floating  gulls  on  the 
water.  Left  by  their  careless  mother  sternly  to 
themselves,  these  luckless  children  struck  out  for 
themselves,  and  like  strong  swimmers  reached  what- 
ever land  lay  next  before  them,  in  their  own  indi- 
vidual way. 

Even  so  the  beehives  of  ancient  Greece  had  sent 
out  their  swarms  of  bees  over  the  busy  Mediterra- 
nean, and  built  up  thriving  commonwealths,  con- 
nected by  the  thin  thread  of  the  "  metropolis  "  city, 
among  the  beautiful  isles  or  palm-fringed  shores  of 
Ionia,  Sicily,  Corcyra,  or  Iberia.  The  thousands  that 
slipped  from  English  ports  into  the  unknown  seas 
seemed  at  first  to  have  slipped  into  an  under-world, 
unimaginably  great,  and  dark,  whence  never  again 
would  they  rise  to  the  yearning  eyes  of  the  mother 
on  the  English  shore. 

Here  again  the  charming  story  of  Alpheus  and 
Arethusa  was  repeated;  what  disappeared  under 
sea  as  sluggish  Alpheus,  in  far-off  Peloponnesus, 


196  George  Washington 

reappeared  in  sunny  Sicily  as  Arethusa,  the  spark- 
ling fountain  of  crystal  water  that  suggested  the 
Fountain  of  Perpetual  Youth.  The  outcast  children, 
self-exiled,  or  independent  rovers  as  they  might  be, 
came  to  themselves  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic 
in  a  new  and  original  light,  and  developed  a  type  of 
which  one,  singling  out  a  group  of  them,  said: 
"  They  are  men,  and  they  are  noble  spirits,  those 
Virginians ! " 

Equally  "  noble  "  wrere  the  men  of  Massachusetts, 
one  of  whom  had  uttered  this  honourable  phrase, 
when  he  heard  of  the  part  played  by  Patrick  Henry 
before  the  burgesses  in  1765. 

This  part,  indeed,  was  merely  the  part  now  being 
played  by  the  whole  American  people,  by  the  three 
millions  of  American  freemen  who  found  their 
mouthpiece  in  the  eloquent  Virginian ;  and  the  true 
key-note  of  the  situation  rang  out  in  clear  tones, 
when  this  incarnation  of  spontaneous  civil  and  in- 
tellectual freedom  exclaimed,  a  few  years  later,  on 
the  floor  of  Congress :  "  I  am  not  a  Virginian — I 
am  an  American !  "  an  utterance  as  striking  in  its 
way  as  the  celebrated  humanitarian  Homo  sum  of 
Terence. 

And  the  finest  commentary  on  this  sentiment  is 
found  in  the  almost  contemporary  saying  of  Fred- 
erick the  Great :  "  Kings  are  nothing  but  men,  and 
all  men  are  equal,"  a  saying  which  constituted 
one  drop — and  that  the  most  vital — of  the  com- 
plex ink  out  of  which  flowed  Jefferson's  master- 
piece. 


WASHINGTON'S  COAT-OF-ARMS. 


The  New  Forces  197 

The  Age  of  Doubt,  of  scepticism  in  Church  and 
State,  of  tolerance  of  intolerance  was  at  hand,  and 
it  was  strange  that  its  gigantic  forces  should  begin 
first  to  play  on  the  sensitive  organisations  of  the 
children  of  the  West,  those  youth  of  the  world,  at 
play  and  at  work  in  the  huge  wilderness  of  Canada 
and  the  Ohio,  where  the  ring  of  the  axe,  not  of  the 
epigram,  was  most  to  be  heard,  and  when  men  were, 
supposedly,  busy  rather  in  sheltering  their  heads  than 
saving  their  souls. 

And  yet  what  is  more  conducive  to  contemplative 
reverie,  to  the  inflowing  "  crafts  and  assaults  "  of 
the  spirit  of  Mephistopheles,  to  the  universal  "  spirit 
that  says  No ! "  than  the  limitless  stretches  of  the 
woods,  the  silence  and  solitude  of  the  primeval  sa- 
vannah, the  noiseless  march  of  majestic  rivers  that 
never  give  an  articulate  answer  to  any  question,  but 
flow  on  for  ever  in  monstrous  fatalism,  dumb,  im- 
placable, silent! 

And  this  spirit  of  Mephistopheles,  quickly  recog- 
nised, and  indelibly  sculptured  by  Goethe  into  the 
massive  structure  of  his  matchless  poem,  was  the 
actuating  spirit  of  the  century  in  which  the  United 
States  were  born.  The  mocking,  scoffing,  question- 
ing interrogation  that  trickled  from  the  pen  of  Vol- 
taire, D'Alembert,  Diderot,  and  the  Encyclopedists 
was  delicately  etherealised  by  wit  and  humour  and 
sarcasm  now  reflected  in  every  face,  as  in  the  thou- 
sand bits  of  a  shivered  mirror,  spread  over  Europe 
like  a  subtle  atmosphere,  crossed  the  ocean,  and  pen- 
etrated to  the  very  citadel  of  Protestantism  and  the 


198  George  Washing-ton 

Roman  faith  alike,  in  Canada  and  the  Saxon  colo- 
nies. The  woodman,  as  his  axe  flashed  through  the 
heart  of  the  falling  oak;  the  voyageur,  as  he  shot 
down  the  lonely  river  and  sang  the  pathetic  chan- 
sons of  France ;  the  selectman,  hurrying  to  meeting- 
house or  primitive  council-hall ;  the  piazza  politician, 
sipping  his  toddy,  spreading  his  legs,  and  discussing 
constitutional  questions  on  the  spacious  verandahs 
of  open-air  Virginia;  even  the  stubborn  peasant  of 
Pennsylvania  and  the  Quaker,  intrenched  in  his 
stronghold  of  impregnable  peace,  felt  the  stress  of 
the  time  and  thrilled  unequivocally  with  the  sensa- 
tion of  foreshadowing  change. 

"  Vincit  qui  patitur"  reads  the  motto  of  one  of 
the  most  illustrious  of  the  old  James  River  families,1 
core  and  centre  of  the  English  civilisation  in  Vir- 
ginia :  "  He  conquers  who  is  patient  "  :  a  motto  al- 
most ironical  in  its  application  to  America  at  this  date. 
Impatience  had  been  from  the  very  start  the  key- 
note of  life  in  the  colonies — impatience  of  restraint, 
impatience  of  royal  governors  and  administrative 
councils,  impatience  of  this  or  that  impost-tax 
whether  native  or  foreign,  impatience  of  the  slow 
and  intolerable  delays  of  leisurely  legislatures,  pro- 
longing or  postponing  salutary  measures  of  pressing 
importance,  impatience  generated  by  the  endless 
nuisances  of  the  slowly-dragging  Indian  wars.  Al- 
ready a  noticeable  feature  of  American  life  had  be- 
come its  quicker  heart-beat,  the  swift  and  powerful 

"William  Henry  Harrison  and  Benjamin  Harrison,  presi- 
dents of  the  United  States. 


The  New  Forces  199 

flow  of  its  blood  in  lungs  and  arteries,  oxygenated 
by  the  new  and  pungent  air  of  a  new  hemisphere. 
Up  to  the  time  of  incipient  Revolution — the  period 
we  have  now  reached — this  impatience  had  taken  a 
physical  turn :  the  "  Colossus  of  the  West "  was 
exercising  its  babyhood  in  muscular  activities,  in 
huge  sprawling  through  the  wood,  in  uncouth  cries 
and  antics  of  pure  physical  exhilaration,  in  battling 
defiantly  against  the  giant  forces  of  nature  with 
which  it  had  to  contend:  in  marrying  wives  and 
getting  children, — "  Go  home  and  get  children !  " 
wrote  Franklin  from  London  a  little  later, — build- 
ing homes,  and  clearing  settlements.  The  joy  of 
possession  had  become  the  supreme  joy :  every  man 
was,  so  to  speak,  a  King's  tenant,  paying  a  quit-rent 
for  his  land  to  the  Crown,  and  ruling  his  log-cabin, 
his  palisadoed  enclosure,  his  farm,  or  his  plantation 
as  proudly  as  the  barons  of  England  ruled  their  cas- 
tles, or  the  Lords  of  the  Loire  their  battlemented 
chateaux.  The  very  abundance  of  the  liberties  they 
enjoyed  had  swollen  the  spirit  of  independence  in 
these  people  of  the  wood  to  an  imperious  pride,  pre- 
sumptuous in  its  attitude  of  fearless  criticism,  ready 
at  a  moment's  notice  to  take  offence  at  innovation 
or  injustice,  unequal  in  the  extreme  to  the  main- 
tenance of  a  mental  equilibrium,  in  which  older  or 
more  philosophic  nations  had  long  since  settled 
down.  The  whole  country,  it  might  be  asserted,  had 
been  born  in  a  time  of  high  temper  and  religious  im- 
patience; and  this  birthmark,  once  stamped  upon 


2OO  George  Washington 

the   intellectual    features   of   the   land,   became   its 
motto,  crest,  and  coat-of-arms. 

The  moment  had  now  come  when  this  physical 
restlessness  was,  by  some  subtle  alchemy,  to  trans- 
mute itself  into  an  intellectual  inquisitiveness,  petu- 
lance, almost  intolerance,  which  incarnated  itself  in 
committees  of  correspondence,  political  clubs,  legis- 
lative bodies,  and  revolutionary  assemblies.  Little 
connected  discourse  had,  so  to  speak,  written  itself 
down  in  America  up  to  this  time.  The  beginnings  of 
a  promising  literature  had,  indeed,  begun  to  sparkle 
casually  in  the  writings  of  Franklin,  Colonel  Wil- 
liam Byrd,  Governor  Hutchinson,  and  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards. But,  on  the  whole,  the  inner  spiritual  forces 
at  work,  in  the  fashion  of  undertow  drifting  hither 
and  thither,  had  not  yet  sufficiently  saturated  the 
subtle  intelligence  of  the  West  to  impel  them  irre- 
sistibly to  speak.  In  pamphlets  alone, — in  broad- 
sides, sheets  of  flame,  and  leaflets  buoyant  as  thistle- 
down floating  here  and  there,  intangible  yet  incan- 
descent, in  newspaper  paragraphs  or  cutting  couplets 
— did  the  anger,  the  discontent,  or  the  buffoonery 
of  the  hour,  find  a  fitful  vent 
.  The  year  1763  became  the  crucial  year,  the  year 
of  concentration,  for  all  the  flotsam  and  jetsam  of 
new  forces  that  had  risen  to  the  top,  between  the 
parallels  of  31  and  45  degrees  north.  In  this  mem- 
orable year,  the  Treaty  of  Paris  between  England 
and  France — between  the  third  George  and  the  fif- 
teenth Louis — had  thrown  open  the  gates  of  almost 
th<?  entire  North  American  Continent,  east  of  the 


The  New  Forces  201 

Mississippi,  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  Scarcely  a  rag 
of  French  influence  hung  on  the  mighty  parallel 
of  longitude  that  swept  from  the  Arctic  Circle  to  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico ;  scarcely  a  petal  of  the  lovely  fleur- 
de-lis  was  left  to  bloom  and  to  star  the  soil  between 
Quebec  and  New  Orleans,  the  memorial  plant  of 
those  cultured  Bourbons  who  saw,  in  its  spread  and 
growth,  suggestions  of  their  symbolic  sovereignty. 
Almost  all  was  now  English  in  the  mighty  world 
over  which  both  had  battled  so  long  and  so  stoutly, 
decided,  once  for  all,  by  the  tragic  conflict  that  had 
for  ever  ennobled  and  ensanguined  the  Heights  of 
Abraham.  In  Montcalm,  the  fleur-de-lis  exhaled  its 
supreme  sigh;  in  Wolfe,  the  rose,  watered  with  the 
blood  of  heroes,  burned  with  a  fiercer  crimson  than 
ever,  and  struck  root,  deep  and  inviolable,  in  a  soil 
from  which  it  was  never  to  be  eradicated. 

Joyous  as  might  be  the  hymns  of  thanksgiving 
which  saluted,  with  their  acclaim,  the  lifting  up  of 
the  everlasting  gates  that  the  King  of  England 
might  enter  in,  the  deed  was  fraught  with  direful 
consequences  to  the  Crown.  The  single  act  of  far- 
spreading  sovereignty  over  the  New  World,  consti- 
tuting the  essence  of  the  treaty,  had,  in  its  heart  of 
hearts,  seeds  of  disaster  and  dissolution  for  the  Brit- 
ish Empire  in  America,  never  suspected  by  the  dip- 
lomats who  drew  it  up.  It  threw  into  the  power  of 
England  realms  of  such  vastness,  responsibilities  so 
searching,  breadth  and  variety  of  interests  so  great, 
that  the  assembled  wisdom  of  the  five  hundred  and 
fifty-eight  members  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and 


2O2  George  Washington 

the  collective,  dignity  of  the  historic  House  of  Lords, 
were  called  upon  at  once  to  devise  ways  and  means 
of  governing  this  world-empire,  whose  edges  alone, 
quivering  with  intelligence,  already  engaged  the 
most  earnest  efforts  of  ministry  and  premier,  tact- 
fully to  manage. 

The  enormous  budgets  of  the  twentieth  century, 
in  which  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  produce 
only  the  stereotyped  annual  stare,  might  well  laugh 
to  scorn  the  bagatelle  of  $70,000,000  then  required 
to  "  run  the  government  " ;  but  this  for  the  time  was 
a  colossal  sum,  and  how  was  it  to  be  raised? 
"  France,"  cried  Walpole  in  one  of  his  animated  let- 
ters, "  has  allowed  us  to  undo  ourselves  " ;  her  su- 
preme generosity  in  the  "affair  of  1763  "  was  the 
historic  exemplification  of  the  coarse  proverb,  "  O 
give  her  rope  enough  and  she  will  hang  herself." 

For  a  hundred  years  and  more,  the  twenty  differ- 
ent kinds  of  governments  in  America  had  been  un- 
tiringly working,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  on 
the  problem  of  enlarging  the  empire,  extending  the 
boundaries  of  colonial  rule,  planting  the  cross  of  St. 
George,  St.  Andrew,  and  St.  Patrick  over  every  blade 
of  grass  that  sprang  from  Plymouth  and  Jamestown, 
to  the  great  river  that  cleft  the  continent  in  twain. 
But  so  gradually  had  the  terms  of  this  problem 
worked  themselves  out,  so  imperceptibly  had  pos- 
session, conquest,  settlement,  organisation  grown, 
that  the  colonies  had  had  time  to  take  breath,  to  find 
themselves  amid  their  new  wealth,  to  raise  revenues 
for  the  support  of  the  Government,  and  generally, 


The  New  Forces  203 

to  accommodate  themselves  easily  to  the  increasing 
pomp  and  circumstance  of  territorial  expansion. 

But,  all  of  a  sudden,  the  scratch  of  a  pen  had  made 
England  responsible  for  half  a  continent  filled  with 
warring  hordes  of  savages  "  dressed  like  sorcerers," 
as  Chateaubriand  complained,  hordes  kept  in  con- 
tinual ferment  by  the  machinations  of  French  and 
Spanish  Jesuits,  a  fringe  of  human  beings  clinging 
with  barbarous  purpose  to  the  rights  of  the  forest, 
and  defending  these  rights  valiantly  in  the  person 
of  the  Pontiacs,  the  "  Cornstalks,"  the  Logans,  who 
fitfully  rose  among  them. 

The  concessions  of  France  turned  out  to  be  a 
stroke  of  misunderstood  but  disconcerting  diplo- 
macy. Through  the  haze  of  a  century  and  a  half, 
one  can  see  the  smile  of  bewitching  grace  with  which 
the  "  viper's  egg  "  (in  Walpole's  words)  was  handed 
over  to  the  representatives  of  Downing  Street, 
quickly  to  hatch  out  its  brood  of  Stamp  Acts,  Navi- 
gation Acts,  tea  tyrannies,  and  arbitrary  legislation, 
directly  traceable  to  the  heroic  blood  spilt  on  the 
Heights  of  Abraham. 

For,  infallibly  as  the  effect  flows  out  of  the  cause, 
was  the  American  Revolution  one  of  the  greater 
births  that  emerged  from  the  Treaty  of  Paris.  How 
guard  all  this  immense  territory?  How  defend  the 
measureless  frontier  from  the  fierce  and  ever-multi- 
plying Indian  tomahawks?  How  must  the  expense 
of  a  colonial  system,  continually  flowing  outward 
like  the  rings  of  effluent  water  into  which  one  has 
thrown  a  gigantic  stone,  be  met?  Where  was  all 


2O4  George   Washington 

this  extravagance  of  cession,  of  conquest,  of  posses- 
sion to  stop  ? 

Revenue  acts  for  America  must  be  planned ;  stand- 
ing armies  must  be  instituted  for  the  transatlantic 
provinces,  and  these  armies  must  be  supported  by 
the  people  whom  they  protected;  the  sacredness  of 
American  homes,  hitherto  free  from  domiciliary  or 
any  other  kind  of  unwelcome  visitor,  must  reveal  its 
inmost  secrets  to  a  foreign  soldiery  billeted  upon 
them;  the  Navigation  Law  must  be  enforced,  and 
this,  that,  and  the  other  obsolete  statute  revived,  and 
every  goose  be  squeezed  to  yield  its  golden  egg. 

The  most  stinging  of  all  these  propositions  was 
perhaps  the  enforcement  of  the  Navigation  Act ;  the 
most  maddening,  the  proposition  to  rivet  a  standing 
army  on  the  colonies  of  free  men  accustomed  to  do 
their  own  soldiering.  "  I  always,"  said  John  Adams, 
"  consider  the  settlement  of  America  with  reverence 
and  wonder,  as  the  opening  of  a  grand  scene  and 
design  in  Providence  for  the  illumination  of  the 
ignorant,  and  the  emancipation  of  the  slavish  part 
of  mankind  all  over  the  earth." 

Advancing  into  the  wilderness  with  Bible,  Book 
of  Common  Prayer,  Catechism,  and  Charter,  the 
four  corner-stones  of  the  quadrangle  of  common- 
wealth life,  they  had  founded  there  numerous  estab- 
lishments which,  in  their  way,  were  models  of  free 
and  noble  institutions,  based  upon  a  constitution 
running  straight  to  Runnymede. 

"  Emancipation  "  had  been  the  dominant  chord 
of  the  whole  movement  from  island  to  continent,  the 


The  New  Forces  205 

secret  of  the  plunge  into  the  great  deep,  the  mystery 
of  embarcation  for  unknown  lands  in  crazy  caravels 
that  scarce  held  bottom,  till  old-world  nostrils  sniffed 
the  fragrances  floating  off-shore  from  the  "  Summer 
Isles."  It  was  as  if  the  ancient  Mother  held  between 
her  lips  a  magic  pipe  and  blew  from  it,  from  time  to 
time,  painted  bubbles  that  wafted  themselves  over 
sea  in  obedience  to  her  command  :  "  Go  my  children : 
make  homes  for  yourselves  " ;  and  there  settling, 
transformed  themselves  from  bubbles  into  substan- 
tial commonwealths,  with  more  or  less  of  the  ra- 
diancy of  their  origin  hanging  about  them. 

And  now  the  proposition  to  catch  all  these  way- 
ward children  in  the  drag-net  of  iron  dependence 
again,  and  subject  them,  willy-nilly,  to  post-duties 
and  internal  taxes,  to  prohibitions  on  free  trade  and 
commerce  with  the  outside  world,  even  to  restric- 
tions on  food,  clothing,  the  printing  press,  and  the 
things  that  make  life  joyous  and  tolerable — the  mad 
purpose  of  the  mother,  to  make  the  full-grown  boy 
a  babe  again,  raised  first  eyebrows  of  incredulity, 
then  inflated  nostrils  with  indignation,  curled  lips 
with  contempt,  and,  finally,  lifted  the  parricidal  hand 
which  was  to  sever,  once  and  for  ever,  the  umbilical 
cord  that  bound  infant  and  parent  vitally  together. 

"  American  independence,  like  the  great  rivers  of  the 
country,  had  many  sources ;  but  the  head-spring  which 
colored  all  the  stream  was  the  Navigation  Act. 

"  Reverence  for  the  colonial  mercantile  system  was 
branded  into  Grenville's  mind  as  deeply  and  inef- 
faceably  as  ever  the  superstition  of  witchcraft  into  a 


206  George  Washington 

credulous  and  child-like  nature.  It  was  his  '  idol ' ; 
and  he  adored  it  as  '  sacred.'  He  held  that  '  Colonies 
are  only  settlements  made  in  distant  parts  of  the  world 
for  the  improvement  of  trade;  that  they  would  be  in- 
tolerable except  on  the  conditions  contained  in  the  Act 
of  Navigation ;  that  those  who,  from  the  increase  of 
contraband,  had  apprehensions  that  they  may  break  off 
their  connection  with  the  mother  country,  saw  not  half 
the  evil ;  that  wherever  the  Acts  of  Navigation  are  dis- 
regarded, the  connection  is  actually  broken  already.' 
Nor  did  this  monopoly  seem  to  him  a  wrong;  he 
claimed  for  England  the  exclusive  trade  with  its 
colonies  as  the  exercise  of  an  indisputable  right  which 
every  state,  in  exclusion  of  all  others,  has  to  the  ser- 
vices of  its  own  subjects.  His  indefatigable  zeal  could 
never  be  satisfied. 

"  All  officers  of  the  customs  in  the  colonies  were 
ordered  to  their  posts;  their  numbers  were  increased; 
they  were  provided  with  '  new  and  ample  instructions 
enforcing  in  the  strongest  manner  the  strictest  atten- 
tion to  their  duty ' ;  every  officer  that  failed  or 
faltered  was  instantly  to  be  dismissed. 

"  Nor  did  Grenville  fail  to  perceive  that  '  the  re- 
straint and  suppression  of  practices  which  had  long 
prevailed,  would  certainly  encounter  great  difficulties 
in  such  distant  parts  of  the  king's  dominions  ' ;  the 
whole  force  of  the  royal  authority  was  therefore  in- 
voked in  aid.  The  Governors  were  to  make  the 
suppression  of  the  forbidden  trade  with  foreign  nations 
the  constant  and  immediate  object  of  their  care.  All 
officers,  both  civil,  and  military,  and  naval,  in  America 
and  the  West  Indies,  were  to  give  their  co-operation. 
'  We  depend,'  said  a  memorial  from  the  treasury,  '  upon 


The  New  Forces  207 

the  sea-guard  as  the  likeliest  means  for  accomplishing 
these  great  purposes/  and  that  sea-guard  was  to  be 
extended  and  strengthened  as  far  as  the  naval  estab- 
lishments would  allow.  To  complete  the  whole,  and 
this  was  a  favorite  part  of  Grenville's  scheme,  a  new 
and  uniform  system  of  Courts  of  Admiralty  was  to  be 
established.  On  the  very  next  day  after  this  memorial 
was  presented,  the  king  himself  in  council  gave  his 
sanction  to  the  whole  system. 

"  Forthwith  orders  were  issued  directly  to  the  Com- 
mander-in-chief in  America  that  the  troops  under  his 
command  should  give  their  assistance  to  the  officers 
of  the  revenue  for  the  effectual  suppression  of  contra- 
band trade. 

"  Nor  was  there  delay  in  following  up  the  new  law 
to  employ  the  navy  to  enforce  the  Navigation  Acts. 
To  this  end  Admiral  Colville,  the  naval  Commander- 
in-chief  on  the  coasts  of  North  America,  from  the  river 
St.  Lawrence  to  Cape  Florida  and  the  Bahama  Islands, 
became  the  head  of  a  new  corps  of  revenue  officers. 
Each  captain  of  his  squadron  had  custom-house  com- 
missions and  a  set  of  instructions  from  the  Lords  Com- 
missioners of  the  Admiralty  for  his  guidance;  and 
other  instructions  were  given  them  by  the  Admiral  to 
enter  the  harbors  or  lie  off  the  coasts  of  America;  to 
qualify  themselves  by  taking  the  usual  custom-house 
oaths  to  do  the  office  of  custom-house  officers ;  to  seize 
such  persons  as  were  suspected  by  them  to  be  engaged 
in  illicit  trade. 

"  The  promise  of  large  emoluments  in  case  of  for- 
feitures stimulated  their  natural  and  irregular  vivacity 
to  enforce  laws  which  had  become  obsolete,  and  they 
pounced  upon  American  property  as  they  would  have 


208  George  Washington 

gone  in  war  in  quest  of  prize-money.  Even  at  first 
their  acts  were  equivocal,  and  they  soon  came  to  be  as 
illegal  as  they  were  oppressive.  There  was  no  redress. 
An  appeal  to  the  Privy  Council  was  costly  and  difficult, 
and  besides,  when  as  happened  before  the  end  of  the 
year,  an  officer  had  to  defend  himself  on  an  appeal, 
the  suffering  colonists  were  exhausted  by  the  delay  and 
expenses,  while  the  treasury  took  care  to  indemnify 
their  agent."  * 

The  enforcement  of  this  act,  which  was  designed 
to  prevent  the  colonies  from  trading  with  any  other 
country  than  England,  at  once  changed  the  entire 
British  Navy,  stationed  in  American  waters,  into  an 
armed  police  scouring  the  seas  for  smugglers,  and 
seizing  everything  but  iron,  rice,  lumber,  and  a  few 
other  articles  as  a  kind  of  contraband. 

The  Navigation  Acts  were  already  more  or  less 
definitely  in  operation, — an  effective  styptic  to  the 
expansion  of  American  trade  except  with  Britain; 
and  Yankee  wits  had  for  generations  been  won- 
drously  quickened  to  circumvent  them,  converting 
the  Gulf  Stream,  so  to  speak,  into  a  battle-ground  of 
smuggling  and  buccaneering  where  endless  dramas 
of  romance  and  adventure  were  played. 

But  these  oppressive  Acts,  repugnant  to  every 
dictate  of  common  sense  and  reason,  even  of  com- 
mon justice  and  decency,  were  now  to  be  reinforced 
by  another  act  of  oppression,  symbolically  repre- 
sented by  a  thin  piece  of  blue  paper  blazoned  with 
lions  rampant  of  Great  Britain.  This  image  of  the 

Bancroft,  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  v,  pp.  159-162. 


The  New  Forces  209 

battling  lions — ruefully  symbolic  as  the  issue  turned 
out — was  to  be  attached  to  every  important  legal 
paper — marriage  contracts  were  not  exempt — that 
concerned  itself  with  the  main  issues  of  trade  and 
commerce,  of  life  and  death  in  the  colonies.  It  was 
an  unhappy  measure,  devised  by  the  ingenuity  of 
statesmen  at  their  wits'  ends  to  meet  the  enormous 
consequences  of  colonial  expansion  imbedded  in  the 
splendid  victory  of  Quebec.  The  mimic  parliaments 
that  had  sprung  up  on  the  James,  in  Massachusetts 
Bay,  at  Charleston,  Annapolis,  Philadelphia,  and  Al- 
bany, were  close  and  truthful  imitations  of  the  great 
legislative  body  that  met  at  St.  Stephen's,  West- 
minster, and  transacted  business  in  which  every  free 
man  delighted  to  take  part.  Free  speech,  free  press, 
the  right  of  free  discussion,  the  right  of  appeal  to  the 
supreme  tribunal,  above  all,  the  right  to  tax  them- 
selves, had  been  from  time  immemorial  the  govern- 
ing principles  of  these  legislative  bodies,  parent  and 
children  alike. 

It  had  been  the  pride  and  the  joy  of  the  younger 
commonwealths  to  copy,  not  only  the  ancient  forms, 
but  the  fresh  and  immortal  spirit  of  English  legis- 
lation, whose  history  and  decisions  were  as  familiar 
on  the  James  as  on  the  Thames. 

At  one  fell  stroke — in  February,  1 765 — all  this 
was  changed  by  one  of  those  acts  of  concentrated 
folly  with  which  parliaments  and  congresses  alike 
occasionally  startle  the  world. 

"  From  the  days  of  King  William  there  was  a  steady 
line  of  precedents  of  opinion  that  America  should,  like 


2io  George  Washington 

Ireland,  provide  in  whole,  or  at  least  in  part,  for  the 
support  of  its  military  establishment.  It  was  one  cf 
the  first  subjects  of  consideration  on  the  organization 
of  the  Board  of  Trade.  It  again  employed  the  attention 
of  the  servants  of  Queen  Anne.  It  was  still  more 
seriously  considered  in  the  days  of  George  the  First; 
and  when,  in  the  reign  of  George  the  Second,  the  Duke 
of  Cumberland  was  at  the  head  of  American  military 
affairs,  it  was  laid  down  as  a  principle,  that  a  revenue 
sufficient  for  the  purpose  must  be  provided.  The  min- 
istry of  Bute  resolved  to  provide  such  a  revenue;  for 
which  Charles  Townshend  pledged  the  government. 
Parliament  wished  it.  The  king  wished  it.  Almost 
all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  repeatedly  wished  it. 

"  How  America  was  to  be  compelled  to  contribute 
this  revenue  remained  a  question.  For  half  a  century 
or  more,  the  king  had  sent  executive  orders  or  requisi- 
tions. But  if  requisitions  were  made,  the  colonial  legis- 
lature claimed  a  right  of  freely  deliberating  upon  them ; 
and  as  the  colonies  were  divided  into  nearly  twenty 
different  governments,  it  was  held  that  they  never 
would  come  to  a  common  result.  The  need  of  some 
principle  of  union,  of  some  central  power  was  asserted. 
To  give  the  military  chief  a  dictatorial  authority  to  re- 
quire subsistence  for  the  army,  was  suggested  by  the 
Board  of  Trade  in  1696,  in  the  days  of  King  William 
and  of  Locke ;  was  more  deliberately  planned  in  1721 ; 
was  apparently  favored  by  Cumberland,  and  was  one 
of  the  arbitrary  proposals  put  aside  by  Pitt.  To  claim 
the  revenue  through  a  congress  of  the  colonies,  was 
at  one  time  the  plan  of  Halifax;  but  if  the  congress 
was  of  governors,  their  decision  would  be  only  con- 
sultatory,  and  have  no  more  weight  than  royal  instruc- 


The  New  Forces  211 

tions;  and  if  the  congress  was  a  representative  body, 
it  would  claim  and  exercise  the  right  of  free  discussion. 
To  demand  a  revenue  by  instruction  from  the  king, 
and  to  enforce  them  by  stringent  coercive  measures,  was 
beyond  the  power  of  the  prerogative,  under  the  system 
established  at  the  revolution.  When  New  York  had 
failed  to  make  appropriations  for  the  civil  service,  a  bill 
was  prepared  to  be  laid  before  Parliament,  giving  the 
usual  revenue ;  and  this  bill  having  received  the  appro- 
bation of  the  great  whig  lawyers,  Northey  and  Ray- 
mond, was  the  precedent  which  overcame  Grenville's 
scruples  about  taxing  the  colonies  without  first  allow- 
ing them  representatives.  It  was  settled  then  that  there 
must  be  a  military  establishment  in  America  of  twenty 
regiments;  that  after  the  first  year  its  expenses  must 
be  defrayed  by  America ;  that  the  American  colonies 
themselves,  with  their  various  charters,  never  would 
agree  to  vote  such  a  revenue,  and  that  Parliament  must 
do  it. 

"  It  remained  to  consider  what  tax  Parliament 
should  impose.  And  here  all  agreed  that  the  first 
object  of  taxation  was  foreign  and  intercolonial  com- 
merce. But  that,  under  the  navigation  acts,  would  not 
produce  enough.  A  poll  tax  was  common  in  America ; 
but,  applied  by  Parliament,  would  fall  unequally  upon 
the  colonies  holding  slaves.  The  difficulty  in  collecting 
quit-rents,  proved  that  a  land  tax  would  meet  with 
formidable  obstacles.  An  excise  was  thought  of,  but 
kept  in  reserve.  An  issue  of  exchequer  bills  to  be  kept 
in  circulation  as  the  currency  of  the  continent,  was 
urged  on  the  ministry,  but  conflicted  with  the  policy 
of  acts  of  parliament  against  the  use  of  paper  money  in 
the  colonies.  Everybody  who  reasoned  on  the  subject, 


212  George  Washington 

decided  for  a  stamp  act,  as  certain  of  collection ;  and  in 
America,  where  lawsuits  were  frequent,  as  likely  to  be 
very  productive.  A  stamp  act  had  been  proposed  to 
Sir  Robert  Walpole  ;  it  had  been  thought  of  by  Pelham ; 
it  had  been  almost  resolved  upon  in  1755 ;  it  had  been 
pressed  upon  Pitt;  it  seems  beyond  a  doubt  to  have 
been  a  part  of  the  system  adopted  in  the  ministry  of 
Bute,  and  was  sure  of  the  support  of  Charles 
Townshend. 

"  Knox,  the  agent  of  Georgia,  stood  ready  to  defend 
the  stamp  act,  as  least  liable  to  objection.  The  agent 
of  Massachusetts,  through  his  brother,  Israel  Mauduit, 
who  had  Jenkinson  for  his  fast  friend  and  often  saw 
Grenville,  favored  raising  the  wanted  money  in  that 
way,  because  it  would  occasion  less  expense  of  officers, 
and  would  include  the  West  India  Islands ;  and  speak- 
ing for  his  constituents,  he  made  a  merit  of  cheerful 
'  submission  '  to  the  ministerial  policy. 

"  One  man  in  Grenville's  office,  and  one  man  only, 
did  indeed  give  him  sound  advice ;  Richard  Jackson, 
his  Secretary  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  advised 
him  to  lay  the  project  aside,  and  refused  to  take  any 
part  in  preparing  or  supporting  it.  But  Jenkinson,  his 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  was  ready  to  render  every 
assistance,  and  weighed  more  than  the  honest  and  in- 
dependent Jackson. 

"  Grenville  therefore  adopted  the  measure  which  was 
'  devolved  upon  him,'  and  his  memory  must  consent, 
as  he  himself  consented,  that  it  should  be  '  christened 
by  his  name.'  It  was  certainly  Grenville,  '  who  first 
brought  this  scheme  into  form.'  He  doubted  the  pro- 
priety of  taxing  colonies,  without  allowing  them  repre- 
sentatives; but  he  loved  power,  and  placed  his  chief 


The  New  Forces  213 

hopes  on  the  favour  of  parliament ;  and  the  parliament 
of  that  day  contemplated  the  increased  debt  of  England 
with  terror,  knew  not  that  the  resources  of  the  country 
were  increasing  in  a  still  greater  proportion,  and  insisted 
on  throwing  a  part  of  the  public  burdens  upon 
America."  x 

Thus  the  cockatrice's  egg  was  hatched. 

1  Bancroft,  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  v,  pp.  152-156. 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  COCKATRICE'S  EGG 

NINETEEN  years  before  the  eighteenth  century 
expired,  an  accomplished  old  man,  half  dandy, 
half  diplomat,  sat  at  his  exquisitely  carved  secretary 
in  the  famous  house  at  Strawberry  Hill,  and  penned 
the  following  retrospective  lines  to  Sir  Horace 
Mann: 

"  From  the  hour  that  fatal  egg,  the  Stamp  Act,  was 
laid,  I  disliked  it  and  all  the  vipers  hatched  from  it. 
I  now  hear  many  curse  it,  who  fed  the  vermin  with 
poisonous  weeds.  Yet  the  guilty  and  the  innocent  rue 
it  equally  hitherto !  I  would  not  answer  for  what  is  to 
come!  Seven  years  of  miscarriages  may  sour  the 
sweetest  tempers,  and  the  most  sweetened.  Oh !  where 
is  the  Dove  with  the  olive-branch?  Long  ago  I  told 
you  that  you  and  I  might  not  live  to  see  an  end  of  the 
American  war.  It  is  very  near  its  end  indeed  now — 
its  consequences  are  far  from  a  conclusion.  In  some 
respects,  they  are  commencing  a  new  date,  which  will 
reach  far  beyond  us.  I  desire  not  to  pry  into  that  book 
of  futurity.  Could  I  finish  my  course  in  peace — but 
one  must  take  the  chequered  scenes  of  life  as  they  come. 
What  signifies  whether  the  elements  are  serene  or 
turbulent,  when  a  private  old  man  slips  away?  What 
has  he  and  the  world's  concerns  to  do  with  one  another  ? 
He  may  sigh  for  his  country,  and  babble  about  it ;  but 

214 


The  Cockatrice's  Egg-          215 

he  might  as  well  sit  quiet  and  read  or  tell  old  stories ; 
the  past  is  as  important  to  him  as  the  future."  1 

It  required  just  ten  years — 1765-1775 — to  hatch 
out  the  viper's  egg,  and  among  the  myriad  of  lively 
young  consequences  that  crept  out  of  it  were  a  seven 
years'  war,  a  debt  of  £70,000,000  (according  to 
Edmund  Burke),  the  extinction  of  100,000  precious 
lives,  and  the  loss  of  what  ultimately  proved  to  be 
3,000,000  square  miles  of  territory. 

Again  Virginia  was  in  that  beautiful  May  time 
(so  dear  to  Chaucer  and  to  all  true  Englishmen), 
during  which  the  Jamestown  Fathers  had  first  looked 
out  and  beheld  the  enchanted  shores  of  Hampton 
Roads;  the  rich  summer  was  advancing;  the  bur- 
gesses at  old  Williamsburg,  having  been  in  session 
some  time,  were  about  to  adjourn,  and  soon  the 
midsummer  calm  of  halcyon  silence  from  their 
wordy  presence  would  fall  like  a  benediction  over 
capitol  and  palace,  when  a  young  man  (it  was  his 
birthday)  rose  in  place,  and,  taking  out  of  his  pocket 
a  sheet  of  paper  torn  from  an  old  law-book,  read  the 
following  preamble  and  "  resolves  "  : 

"  Whereas,  the  honorable  house  of  commons  in  Eng- 
land have  of  late  drawn  into  question  how  far  the 
general  assembly  of  this  colony  hath  power  to  enact 
laws  for  laying  of  taxes  and  imposing  duties,  payable 
by  the  people  of  this,  his  majesty's  most  ancient  colony : 
for  settling  and  ascertaining  the  same  to  all  future 
times,  the  house  of  burgesses  of  this  present  general 
assembly  have  come  to  the  following  resolves : — 

1  Letters  of  Horace  Walpole,  vol.  ii,  p.  247. 


216  George  Washington 

"  i.  Resolved,  That  the  first  adventurers  and  set- 
tlers of  this,  his  majesty's  colony  and  dominion, 
brought  with  them  and  transmitted  to  their  posterity, 
and  all  other  his  majesty's  subjects,  since  inhabiting 
in  this,  his  majesty's  said  colony,  all  the  privileges, 
franchises,  and  immunities  that  have  at  any  time  been 
held,  enjoyed,  and  possessed,  by  the  people  of  Great 
Britain. 

"  2.  Resolved,  That  by  two  royal  charters,  granted 
by  king  James  the  First,  the  colonists  aforesaid  are 
declared  entitled  to  all  the  privileges,  liberties,  and  im- 
munities of  denizens  and  natural  born  subjects,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  as  if  they  had  been  abiding  and 
born  within  the  realm  of  England. 

"  3.  Resolved,  That  the  taxation  of  the  people  by 
themselves  or  by  persons  chosen  by  themselves  to  repre- 
sent them,  who  can  only  know  what  taxes  the  people 
are  able  to  bear,  and  the  easiest  mode  of  raising  them, 
and  are  equally  affected  by  such  taxes  themselves,  is 
the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  British  freedom, 
and  without  which  the  ancient  constitution  cannot 
subsist. 

"  4.  Resolved,  That  his  majesty's  liege  people  of 
this  most  ancient  colony  have  uninterruptedly  enjoyed 
the  right  of  being  thus  governed  by  their  own  assembly 
in  the  article  of  their  taxes,  and  internal  police,  and 
that  the  same  hath  never  been  forfeited,  or  any  other 
way  given  up,  but  hath  been  constantly  recognised  by 
the  kings  and  people  of  Great  Britain. 

"  5.  Resolved,  therefore,  That  the  general  assembly 
of  this  colony  have  the  only  and  sole  exclusive  right 
and  power  to  lay  taxes  and  impositions  upon  the  in- 
habitants of  this  colony ;  and  that  every  attempt  to  vest 


The  Cockatrice's  Egg          217 

such  power  in  any  person  or  persons  whatsoever,  other 
than  the  general  assembly  aforesaid,  has  a  manifest 
tendency  to  destroy  British  as  well  as  American 
freedom. 

"6.  Resolved,  That  his  majesty's  liege  people,  the 
inhabitants  of  this  colony,  are  not  bound  to  yield  obe- 
dience to  any  law  or  ordinance  whatever,  designed  to 
impose  any  taxation  whatsoever  upon  them,  other  than 
the  laws  or  ordinances  of  the  general  assembly  afore- 
said. 

"  7.  Resolved,  That  any  person  who  shall,  by  speak- 
ing or  writing,  assert  or  maintain  that  any  person  or 
persons,  other  than  the  general  assembly  of  this  colony, 
have  any  right  or  power  to  impose  or  lay  any  taxation 
on  the  people  here,  shall  be  deemed  an  enemy  to  his 
majesty's  colony." 

"  No  reader  will  find  it  hard  to  accept  Jefferson's 
statement  that  the  debate  on  these  resolutions  was 
'  most  bloody.'  '  They  were  opposed  by  Randolph, 
Bland,  Pendleton,  Nicholas,  Wythe,  and  all  the  old 
members,  whose  influence  in  the  house  had  till  then 
been  unbroken.'  There  was  every  reason,  whether  of 
public  policy  or  of  private  feeling,  why  the  old  party 
leaders  in  the  House  should  now  bestir  themselves,  and 
combine,  and  put  forth  all  their  powers  in  debate,  to 
check,  and  if  possible  to  rout  and  extinguish  this  self- 
conceited  but  most  dangerous  young  man.  '  Many 
threats  were  uttered,  and  much  abuse  cast  on  him,'  said 
Patrick  himself,  long  afterward.  Logic,  learning, 
eloquence,  denunciation,  derision,  intimidation,  were 
poured  from  all  sides  of  the  House  upon  the  head  of 
the  presumptuous  intruder ;  but  alone,  or  almost  alone, 
he  confronted,  and  defeated  all  his  assailants. 


218  George  Washington 

'  Torrents  of  sublime  eloquence  from  Mr.  Henry, 
backed  by  the  solid  reasoning  of  Johnston,  prevailed.' 
"  It  was  sometime  in  the  course  of  this  tremendous 
fight,  extending  through  the  2pth  and  3Oth  of  May, 
that  the  incident  occurred  which  has  long  been  familiar 
among  the  anecdotes  of  the  Revolution,  and  which  may 
be  here  recalled  as  a  reminiscence,  not  only  of  his  own 
consummate  mastery  of  the  situation,  but  of  a  most 
dramatic  scene  in  an  epoch-making  debate.  Reaching 
the  climax  of  a  passage  of  fearful  invective,  on  the 
injustice  and  the  impolicy  of  the  Stamp  Act,  he  said 
in  tones  of  thrilling  solemnity,  '  Caesar  had  his  Brutus ; 
Charles  the  First,  his  Cromwell ;  and  George  the  Third 
['  Treason,'  shouted  the  speaker.  '  Treason,'  '  treason,' 
rose  from  all  sides  of  the  room.  The  orator  paused  in 
stately  defiance  till  these  rude  exclamations  were 
ended,  and  then,  rearing  himself  with  a  look  and  bear- 
ing of  still  prouder  and  fiercer  determination,  he  so 
closed  the  sentence  as  to  baffle  his  accusers,  without 
in  the  least  flinching  from  his  position,] — and  George 
the  Third  may  profit  by  their  example.  If  this  be 
treason,  make  the  most  of  it.'  "  1 

The  young  man's  voice  was  wonderfully  sweet 
and  flexible  and  grew  in  majesty  and  power  as  he 
read  on,  occasionally  lifting  an  eye. full  of  expression, 
then  kindling  with  "  a  great  flame  of  dauntless  pur- 
pose "  as  he  pursued  his  reading  to  the  end. 

Agitation  betrayed  itself  on  every  countenance, 
as  the  young  upstart  from  Louisa  wound  his  way, 
at  first  with  embarrassment,  then  with  incompa- 
rable ease  and  power,  through  the  weighty  labyrinth 

1  Tyler,  Patrick  Henry,  pp.  61-64. 


BOOK    of   SURVEYS 


JULY  22:  )74Q 


SURVEYOR'S   MANUSCRIPT. 
From  Washington's  "Book  of  Surveys." 


The  Cockatrice's  Egg          219 

of  principles  and  statements  slowly  unfolding  itself 
from  the  paper  in  his  hand.  Men  looked  at  each 
other  in  amazement;  annoyance,  indignation,  wrath 
flashed  out  of  eyes  long  accustomed  to  rule  in  that 
historic  assembly,  answered  by  smiles  of  jubilant 
surprise,  ecstasy,  delight  from  others  on  whom  "  the 
day  Star  of  the  Revolution  "  now  rose  for  the  first 
time.  There  were  grey-haired  constitutional  law- 
yers— Randolph,  the  Attorney-general,  John  Robin- 
son, Speaker  of  the  House,  four  of  the  incipient 
signers  of  the  Declaration,  the  president  of  the  first 
Continental  Congress  (to  be),  Wythe,  the  eminent 
Chancellor  (afterwards  poisoned  by  his  nephew), 
Bland,  Nicholas,  Johnston,  Fleming  (to  whom  the 
"  Resolves "  were  afterwards  strangely  attrib- 
uted by  Jefferson),  possibly  Colonel  Washington 
himself;  a  throng  of  distinguished  men  skilled  in 
debate,  grown  grey  in  the  service  of  their  country, 
not  one  of  whom  had  as  yet  publicly  spoken  on  the 
great  question  burning  in  the  hearts  of  all. 

Attention  riveted  itself  on  the  member  from 
Louisa :  imperceptibly,  memory  began  to  work  here 
and  there,  members  began  to  recall  a  certain  "  to- 
bacco question "  which  had  agitated  the  whole 
colony  three  years  before,  in  which  this  very  man 
(aged  twenty-seven)  had  taken  central  part. 

This  was  the  famous  Parsons'  Case,  and  the  man 
was — Patrick  Henry. 

In  this  case,  remarkable  for  the  turn  things  had 
taken,  the  young  advocate,  hardly  familiar  with  the 
forms  of  law  itself,  had  been  on  the  wrong  side,  on 


22O  George  Washington 

the  side  of  repudiation  of  a  solemn  obligation  entered 
into  by  the  vestries  to  pay  their  rectors  in  pounds 
of  tobacco,  not  in  pennies  of  depreciated  paper;  yet 
such  was  the  power  of  his  oratory,  his  thrilling  de- 
nunciations of  interference  by  the  Crown  in  local 
legislation,  his  gift  of  persuasion  and  of  quick  and 
fluent  imagination,  that  judge  and  jury  alike  were 
overwhelmed,  the  decision  in  favour  of  the  parsons 
(virtually  all  the  ghostly  advisers  in  Virginia)  was 
instantly  reversed,  twenty  of  the  most  learned  clergy 
of  the  commonwealth  present  fled  pell-mell  from 
their  seats,  and  a  verdict  of  one  penny  damages 
against  the  Rev.  James  Maury  et  al.  was  brought  in 
without  delay. 

It  was  in  this  speech  that  the  audacious  orator 
had  first  used  the  word  "  tyrant "  as  applicable  to 
a  ruler  who  would  trample  under  foot  ancient  char- 
ters and  constitutional  guarantees,  and  that  the 
alliterative  response  "  treason "  darted  from  the 
lips  of  bystanders  still  loyal  to  the  House  of  Han- 
over. 

As  this  tide  of  memories  and  associations  flowed 
into  the  consciousness  of  the  burgesses,  as  they  sat 
around,  from  Mr.  Speaker  to  the  humblest  repre- 
sentative of  forest  and  mountain,  the  situation 
cleared :  men  stared,  at  first  aghast,  then  with 
gesture  of  antagonism  or  assent ;  at  last  things  came 
to  a  crisis :  men  voted. 

"  Ayes  20;  noes  19,"  rang  out  in  clear  tones  from 
the  clerk's  desk.  The  celebrated  "  Virginia  Reso- 
lutions "  were  a  part  of  history. 


The  Cockatrice's  Egg         221 

"  Upon  this  final  discomfiture  of  the  old  leaders, 
one  of  their  number,  Peyton  Randolph,  swept  angrily 
out  of  the  House,  and  brushing  past  young  Thomas 
Jefferson,  who  was  standing  in  the  door  of  the  lobby, 
he  swore,  with  a  great  oath,  that  he  '  would  have 
given  five  hundred  guineas  for  a  single  vote.'  " 1 

When  he  was  a  very  old  man,  almost  at  the  close 
of  his  career,  Henry  gave  the  following  authentic 
account  of  this  celebrated  transaction : 

"  The  within  resolutions  passed  the  house  of  bur- 
gesses in  May,  1765.  They  formed  the  first  opposition 
to  the  Stamp  Act,  and  the  scheme  of  taxing  America 
by  the  British  parliament.  All  the  colonies,  either 
through  fear,  or  want  of  opportunity  to  form  an  opposi- 
tion, or  from  influence  of  some  kind  or  other,  had  re- 
mained silent.  I  had  been  for  the  first  time  elected 
a  burgess  a  few  days  before  ;  was  young,  inexperienced, 
unacquainted  with  the  forms  of  the  house,  and  the 
members  that  composed  it.  Finding  the  men  of  weight 
averse  to  opposition,  and  the  commencement  of  the  tax 
at  hand,  and  that  no  person  was  likely  to  step  forth, 
I  determined  to  venture;  and  alone,  unadvised,  and 
unassisted,  on  a  blank  leaf  of  an  old  law  book,  wrote 
the  within.  Upon  offering  them  to  the  house,  violent 
debates  ensued.  Many  threats  were  uttered,  and  much 
abuse  cast  on  me  by  the  party  for  submission.  After 
a  long  and  warm  contest,  the  resolutions  passed  by  a 
very  small  majority,  perhaps  of  one  or  two  only.  The 
alarm  spread  throughout  America  with  astonishing 
quickness,  and  the  ministerial  party  were  overwhelmed. 
The  great  point  of  resistance  to  British  taxation  was 

1  Tyler,  Patrick  Henry,  p.  66. 


222  George  Washington 

universally  established  in  the  colonies.  This  brought 
on  the  war,  which  finally  separated  the  two  countries, 
and  gave  independence  to  ours. 

"  Whether  this  will  prove  a  blessing  or  a  curse,  will 
depend  upon  the  use  our  people  make  of  the  blessings 
which  a  gracious  God  hath  bestowed  on  us.  If  they 
are  wise,  they  will  be  great  and  happy.  If  they  are  of 
a  contrary  character,  they  will  be  miserable.  Right- 
eousness alone  can  exalt  them  as  a  nation. 

"  Reader !  whoever  thou  art,  remember  this ;  and  in 
thy  sphere  practise  virtue  thyself,  and  encourage  it  in 
others. 

"  P.  HENRY."  l 

"  As  the  historic  importance  of  the  Virginia  resolu- 
tions became  more  and  more  apparent,  a  disposition 
was  manifested  to  deny  to  Patrick  Henry  the  honour 
of  having  written  them.  As  early  as  1790,  Madison, 
between  whom  and  Henry  there  was  nearly  always  a 
sharp  hostility,  significantly  asked  Edmund  Pendleton 
to  tell  him  '  where  the  resolutions  proposed  by  Mr. 
Henry  really  originated.'  "  2 

Edmund  Randolph  is  said  to  have  asserted  that 
they  were  written  by  William  Fleming ;  a  statement 
of  which  Jefferson  remarked,  "  It  is  to  me  incom- 
prehensible." But  to  Jefferson's  own  testimony  on 
the  same  subject,  I  would  apply  the  same  remark. 
In  his  Memorandum,  he  says  without  hesitation  that 
the  resolutions  "  were  drawn  up  by  George  Johns- 
ton, a  lawyer  of  the  Northern  Neck,  a  very  able, 

1  Tyler,  Patrick  Henry,  p.  75. 

'Letters  and  Other  Writings  of  Madison,  vol.  i,  p.  515. 


The  Cockatrice's  Egg          223 

logical,  and  correct  speaker." *  But  in  another 
paper,  written  at  about  the  same  time,  Jefferson 
said :  "  I  can  readily  enough  believe  these  resolutions 
were  written  by  Mr.  Henry  himself.  They  bear 
the  stamp  of  his  mind,  strong  without  precision. 
That  they  were  written  by  Johnston,  who  seconded 
them,  was  only  the  rumor  of  the  day,  and  very 
possibly  unfounded."  In  the  face  of  all  this  tissue 
of  rumour,  guesswork,  and  self-contradiction,  the 
deliberate  statement  of  Patrick  Henry  himself,  that 
he  wrote  the  seven  resolutions  referred  to  by  him, 
and  that  he  wrote  them  "  alone,  unadvised,  and  un- 
assisted," must  close  the  discussion.2 

This  places  in  an  undoubted  light  not  only  the 
authorship  of  the  "  Resolves  "  but  certain  accom- 
panying details  picturesquely  clinging  to  these 
passages. 

Of  extreme  importance  for  our  immediate  pur- 
pose is  a  small  group  of  Washington  letters, 
running  from  1767  to  the  beginning  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, showing  the  growth  of  opinion  on  this  taxa- 
tion question  in  the  mind  of  the  most  illustrious 
figure  and  actor  in  it.  Incidentally,  too,  these  letters 
show  vividly  the  kind  of  correspondence  then  pass- 
ing from  week  to  week  among  Virginia  gentlemen 
of  the  ruling  class,  alive  to  the  needs  of  the  day, 
the  .  situation  of  matters  in  England,  the  trend  of 
public  opinion  on  subjects  vitally  affecting  the 

1  Hist.  Mag.  for  1867,  p.  91. 

2  Tyler,  Patrick  Henry,  p.  75,  note. 


224  George  Washington 

colonies.  Washington  was  never  passionate  nor 
partisan;  the  ardour  of  his  mind  usually  expressed 
itself  in  acts,  not  in  words;  but  one  cannot  read  this 
striking  group  of  opinions  and  reflections  on  the 
drift  of  things  in  America,  in  the  decade  under  dis- 
cussion, without  feeling  the  increasing  purpose,  the 
deep  and  concentrated  feeling,  the  surge  and  swell 
of  an  anger  which  at  last,  repressed  with  admirable 
self-control  for  ten  years,  burst  all  bounds  and  con- 
verted this  man  and  thousands  of  his  countrymen 
from  rank  royalists  to  rank  republicans,  from  Eng- 
lishmen bred  in  the  bone,  to  rebels,  revolutionists, 
Americans. 

Autobiographically  remodelled,  these  letters 
might  well  be  entitled :  "  How  I  Became  a  Rebel." 

"  To  GEORGE  MASON 

"  Mount  Vernon,  5  April,  1769. 
"  DEAR  SIR, 

"  Herewith  you  will  receive  a  letter  and  sundry 
papers,  which  were  forwarded  to  me  a  day  or  two  ago 
by  Dr.  Ross  of  Bladensburg.  I  transmit  them  with  the 
greater  pleasure,  as  my  own  desire  of  knowing  your 
sentiments  upon  a  matter  of  this  importance  exactly 
coincides  with  the  Doctor's  inclinations. 

"  At  a  time,  when  our  lordly  masters  in  Great 
Britain  will  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  the 
deprivation  of  American  freedom,  it  seems  highly 
necessary  that  something  should  be  done  to  avert  the 
stroke,  and  maintain  the  liberty,  which  we  have  de- 
rived from  our  ancestors.  But  the  manner  of  doing 


The  Cockatrice's  Egg         225 

it,  to  answer  the  purpose  effectually,  is  the  point  in 
question. 

"  That  no  man  should  scruple,  or  hesitate  a  moment, 
to  use  a — ms  in  defence  of  so  valuable  a  blessing,  on 
which  all  the  good  and  evil  of  life  depends,  is  clearly 
my  opinion.  Yet  a — ms  I  would  beg  leave  to  add, 
should  be  the  last  resource,  the  dernier  resort.  Ad- 
dresses to  the  throne,  and  remonstrances  to  Parliament, 
we  have  already,  it  is  said,  proved  the  inefficacy  of. 
How  far,  then,  their  attention  to  our  rights  and  privi- 
liges  is  to  be  awakened  or  alarmed,  by  starving  their 
trade  and  manufactures,  remains  to  be  tried. 

"  The  northern  colonies,  it  appears,  are  endeavoring 
to  adopt  this  scheme.  In  my  opinion  it  is  a  good  one, 
and  must  be  attended  with  salutary  effects,  provided 
it  can  be  carried  pretty  generally  into  execution.  But 
to  what  extent  it  is  practicable  to  do  so,  I  will  not  take 
upon  me  to  determine.  That  there  will  be  difficulties 
attending  the  execution  of  it  every  where,  from  clash- 
ing interests,  and  selfish,  designing  men,  (ever  atten- 
tive to  their  own  gain,  and  watchful  of  every  turn,  that 
can  assist  their  lucrative  views,  in  preference  to  every 
other  consideration)  cannot  be  denied;  but  in  the 
tobacco  colonies,  where  the  trade  is  so  diffused,  and  in 
a  manner  wholly  conducted  by  factors  for  their  prin- 
cipals at  home,  these  difficulties  are  certainly  enhanced, 
but  I  think  not  insurmountably  increased,  if  the  gentle- 
men in  their  several  counties  will  be  at  some  pains  to 
explain  matters  to  the  people,  and  stimulate  them  to  a 
cordial  agreement  to  purchase  none  but  certain  enu- 
merated articles  out  of  any  of  the  stores  after  such  a 
period,  nor  import  nor  purchase  any  themselves.  This, 
if  it  did  not  effectually  withdraw  the  factors  from  their 


226  George  Washington 

importations,  would  at  least  make  them  extremely  cau- 
tious in  doing  it,  as  the  prohibited  goods  could  be 
vended  to  none  but  the  non-associators,  or  those  who 
would  pay  no  regard  to  their  association ;  both  of  whom 
ought  to  be  stigmatized,  and  made  the  objects  of  public 
reproach. 

"  The  more  I  consider  a  scheme  of  this  sort,  the  more 
ardently  I  wish  success  to  it,  because  I  think  there  are 
private  as  well  as  public  advantages  to  result  from  it, — 
the  former  certain,  however  precarious  the  other  may 
prove.  For  in  respect  to  the  latter,  I  have  always 
thought,  that  by  virtue  of  the  same  power,  (for  here 
alone  the  authority  derives)  which  assumes  the  right 
of  taxation,  they  may  attempt  at  least  to  restrain  our 
manufactories,  especially  those  of  a  public  nature,  the 
same  equity  and  justice  prevailing  in  the  one  case  as 
the  other,  it  being  no  greater  hardship  to  forbid  my 
manufacturing,  than  it  is  to  order  me  to  buy  goods  of 
them  loaded  with  duties,  for  the  express  purpose  of 
raising  a  revenue.  But  as  a  measure  of  this  sort  would 
be  an  additional  exertion  of  arbitrary  power,  we  can- 
not be  worsted,  I  think,  by  putting  it  to  the  test. 

"  On  the  other  hand,  that  the  colonies  are  consider- 
ably indebted  to  Great  Britain,  is  a  truth  universally 
acknowledged.  That  many  families  are  reduced  al- 
most, if  not  quite,  to  penury  and  want  from  the  low  ebb 
of  their  fortunes,  and  estates  daily  selling  for  the 
discharge  of  debts,  the  public  papers  furnish  but  too 
many  melancholy  proofs  of,  and  that  a  scheme  of  this 
sort  will  contribute  more  effectually  than  any  other  I 
can  devise  to  emerge  the  country  from  the  distress  it 
at  present  labors  under,  I  do  most  firmly  believe,  if  it 
can  be  generally  adopted.  And  I  can  see  but  one  set 


2  -5 


The  Cockatrice's  Egg          227 

of  people  (the  merchants  excepted,)  who  will  not,  or 
ought  not,  to  wish  well  to  the  scheme,  and  that  is  those 
who  live  genteelly  and  hospitably  on  clear  estates. 
Such  as  these,  were  they  not  to  consider  the  valuable 
object  in  view,  and  the  good  of  others,  might  think  it 
hard  to  be  curtailed  in  their  living  and  enjoyments. 
For  as  to  the  penurious  man,  he  saves  his  money,  and 
saves  his  credit,  having  the  best  plea  for  doing  that, 
which  before,  perhaps,  he  had  the  most  violent  strug- 
gles to  refrain  from  doing.  The  extravagant  and 
expensive  man  has  the  same  good  plea  to  retrench  his 
expenses.  He  is  thereby  furnished  with  a  pretext  to 
live  within  bounds,  and  embraces  it.  Prudence  dictated 
economy  to  him  before,  but  his  resolution  was  too  weak 
to  put  it  in  practice ;  For  how  can  I,  says  he,  who  have 
lived  in  such  and  such  a  manner,  change  my  method  ? 
I  am  ashamed  to  do  it,  and,  besides,  such  an  alteration 
in  the  system  of  my  living  will  create  suspicions  of  the 
decay  in  my  fortune,  and  such  a  thought  the  world 
must  not  harbour.  I  will  e'en  continue  my  course,  till 
at  last  the  course  discontinues  the  estate,  a  sale  of  it 
being  the  consequence  of  his  perseverance  in  error. 
This  I  am  satisfied  is  the  way,  that  many,  who  have 
set  out  in  the  wrong  track,  have  reasoned,  till  ruin  stares 
them  in  the  face.  And  in  respect  to  the  poor  and  needy 
man,  he  is  only  left  in  the  same  situation  that  he  was 
found, — better,  I  might  say,  because,  as  he  judges  from 
comparison,  his  condition  is  amended  in  proportion 
as  it  approaches  nearer  to  those  above  him. 

"  Upon  the  whole,  therefore,  I  think  the  scheme  a 
good  one,  and  that  it  ought  to  be  tried  here,  with  such 
alterations  as  the  exigency  of  our  circumstances  ren- 
ders absolutely  necessary.  But  how,  and  in  what 


228  George  Washington 

manner  to  begin  the  work,  is  a  matter  worthy  of  con- 
sideration, and  whether  it  can  be  attempted  with 
propriety  or  efficacy  (further  than  a  communication 
of  sentiments  to  one  another,)  before  May,  when  the 
Court  and  Assembly  will  meet  in  Williamsburg,  and 
a  uniform  plan  can  be  concerted,  and  sent  into  the  dif- 
ferent counties  to  operate  at  the  same  time  and  in  the 
same  manner  everywhere,  is  a  thing  I  am  somewhat 
in  doubt  upon,  and  should  be  glad  to  know  your 
opinion  of."  1 

The  following  is  an  extract  from  Mr.  Mason's 
reply  to  this  letter,  dated  the  same  day : 

"  I  entirely  agree  with  you,  that  no  regular  plan  of 
the  sort  proposed  can  be  entered  into  here,  before  the 
meeting  of  the  General  Court  at  least,  if  not  of  the 
Assembly.  In  the  mean  time  it  may  be  necessary  to 
publish  something  preparatory  to  it  in  our  gazettes, 
to  warn  the  people  of  the  impending  danger,  and  induce 
them  the  more  readily  and  cheerfully  to  concur  in  the 
proper  measures  to  avert  it ;  and  something  of  this  sort 
I  had  begun,  but  am  unluckily  stopped  by  a  disorder, 
which  affects  my  head  and  eyes.  As  soon  as  I  am  able, 
I  shall  resume  it,  and  then  write  you  more  fully,  or 
endeavor  to  see  you.  In  the  mean  time  pray  commit  to 
writing  such  hints  as  may  occur. 

"  Our  all  is  at  stake,  and  the  little  conveniences  and 
comforts  of  life,  when  set  in  competition  with  our 
liberty,  ought  to  be  rejected,  not  with  reluctance,  but 
with  pleasure.  Yet  it  is  plain,  that  in  the  tobacco  colo- 
nies we  cannot  at  present  confine  our  importations 
within  such  narrow  bounds,  as  the  northern  colonies. 

1  Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  ii,  p.  263. 


The  Cockatrice's  Egg         229 

A  plan  of  this  kind,  to  be  practicable,  must  be  adapted  to 
our  circumstances ;  for  if  not  steadily  executed,  it  had 
better  have  remained  unattempted.  We  may  retrench 
all  manner  of  superfluities,  finery  of  all  descriptions, 
and  confine  ourselves  to  linens,  woollens,  &c.  not  ex- 
ceeding a  certain  price.  It  is  amazing  how  much  this 
practice,  if  adopted  in  all  the  colonies,  would  lessen 
the  American  imports,  and  distress  the  various  traders 
and  manufacturers  in  Great  Britain. 

"  This  would  awaken  their  attention.  They  would 
see,  they  would  feel,  the  oppressions  we  groan  under, 
and  exert  themselves  to  procure  us  redress.  This  once 
obtained,  we  should  no  longer  discontinue  our  impor- 
tations, confining  ourselves  still  not  to  import  any 
article,  that  should  hereafter  be  taxed  by  act  of  Par- 
liament for  raising  a  revenue  in  America;  for,  how- 
ever singular  I  may  be  in  my  opinion,  I  am  thoroughly 
convinced,  that,  justice  and  harmony  happily  restored, 
it  is  not  the  interest  of  these  colonies  to  refuse  British 
manufactures.  Our  supplying  our  mother  country 
with  gross  materials,  and  taking  her  manufactures  in 
return,  is  the  true  chain  of  connexion  between  us. 
These  are  the  bands,  which,  if  not  broken  by  op- 
pression, must  long  hold  us  together,  by  maintaining 
a  constant  reciprocation  of  interest.  Proper  caution 
should,  therefore,  be  used  in  drawing  up  the  proposed 
plan  of  association.  It  may  not  be  amiss  to  let  the 
ministry  understand,  that,  until  we  obtain  a  redress  of 
grievances,  we  will  withhold  from  them  our  commod- 
ities, and  particularly  refrain  from  making  tobacco, 
by  which  the  revenue  would  lose  fifty  times  more  than 
all  their  oppressions  could  raise  here. 

"  Had  the  hint,  which  I  have  given  with  regard  to 


230  George  Washington 

taxation  of  goods  imported  into  America,  been  thought 
of  by  our  merchants  before  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp 
Act,  the  late  American  revenue  acts  would  probably 
never  have  been  attempted."  * 


"  To  BRYAN  FAIRFAX 

"  Mount  Vernon,  4  July,  1774. 
". .  .As  to  your  political  sentiments,  I  would  heart- 
ily join  you  in  them,  so  far  as  relates  to  a  humble 
and  dutiful  petition  to  the  throne,  provided  there  was 
the  most  distant  hope  of  success.  But  have  we  not 
tried  this  already  ?  Have  we  not  addressed  the  Lords, 
and  remonstrated  to  the  Commons  ?  And  to  what  end  ? 
Did  they  deign  to  look  at  our  petitions?  Does  it  not 
appear,  as  clear  as  the  sun  in  its  meridian  brightness, 
that  there  is  a  regular,  systematic  plan  formed  to  fix 
the  right  and  practice  of  taxation  upon  us?  Does  not 
the  uniform  conduct  of  Parliament  for  some  years 
past  confirm  this?  Do  not  all  the  debates,  especially 
those  just  brought  to  us,  in  the  House  of  Commons  on 
the  side  of  government,  expressly  declare  that  America 
must  be  taxed  in  aid  of  the  British  funds,  and  that  she 
has  no  longer  resources  within  herself?  Is  there  any 
thing  to  be  expected  from  petitioning  after  this?  Is 
not  the  attack  upon  the  liberty  and  property  of  the 
people  of  Boston,  before  restitution  of  the  loss  to  the 
India  Company  was  demanded,  a  plain  and  self-evident 
proof  of  what  they  are  aiming  at?  Do  not  the  sub- 
sequent bills  (now  I  dare  say  acts),  for  depriving  the 
Massachusetts  Bay  of  its  charter,  and  for  transporting 

4  Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  ii,  p.  267,  note. 
For  letters  to  Capel  Hanbury  and  Robert  Gary,  see  p.  199. 


The  Cockatrice's  Egg          231 

offenders  into  other  colonies  or  to  Great  Britain  for 
trial,  where  it  is  impossible  from  the  nature  of  the 
thing  that  justice  can  be  obtained,  convince  us  that  the 
administration  is  determined  to  stick  at  nothing  to 
carry  its  point  ?  Ought  we  not,  then,  to  put  our  virtue 
and  fortitude  to  the  severest  test? 

"  With  you  I  think  it  a  folly  to  attempt  more  than 
we  can  execute,  as  that  will  not  only  bring  disgrace 
upon  us,  but  weaken  our  cause;  yet  I  think  we  may 
do  more  than  is  generally  believed,  in  respect  to  the 
non-importation  scheme.  As  to  the  withholding  of  our 
remittances,  that  is  another  point,  in  which  I  own  I 
have  my  doubts  on  several  accounts,  but  principally 
on  that  of  justice ;  for  I  think,  whilst  we  are  accusing 
others  of  injustice,  we  should  be  just  ourselves;  and 
how  this  can  be,  whilst  we  owe  a  considerable  debt,  and 
refuse  payment  of  it  to  Great  Britain,  is  to  me  in- 
conceivable. Nothing  but  the  last  extremity,  I  think, 
can  justify  it.  Whether  this  is  now  come,  is  the  ques- 
tion." 1 

"  The  inhabitants  of  Fairfax  County  had  assembled, 
and  appointed  a  committee  for  drawing  up  resolutions 
expressive  of  their  sentiments  on  the  great  topics,  which 
agitated  the  country.  Washington  was  chairman  of 
this  committee,  and  moderator  of  the  meetings  held 
by  the  people.  An  able  report  was  prepared  by  the 
committee,  containing  a  series  of  resolutions,  which 
were  presented  at  a  general  meeting  of  the  inhabitants 
at  the  court-house  in  Fairfax  County  on  the  i8th  of 
July. 

"  Mr.    Bryan   Fairfax,    who   had   been   present   on 

1  Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  ii,  p.  417. 


232  George  Washington 

former  occasions,  not  approving  all  the  resolutions, 
absented  himself  from  this  meeting,  and  wrote  a  long 
letter  to  the  chairman,  stating  his  views  and  objections, 
with  the  request  that  it  should  be  publicly  read."  2 


"  To  BRYAN  FAIRFAX 

"  Mount  Vernon,  20  July,  1774. 
"  DEAR  SIR, 

"  Your  letter  of  the  I7th  was  not  presented  to  me 
till  after  the  resolutions,  (which  were  adjudged  ad- 
visable for  this  county  to  come  to),  had  been  revised, 
altered,  and  corrected  in  the  committee;  nor  till  we 
had  gone  into  a  general  meeting  in  the  court-house, 
and  my  attention  necessarily  called  every  moment  to 
the  business  that  was  before  it.  I  did,  however,  upon 
receipt  of  it  (in  that  hurry  and  bustle,)  hastily  run 
it  over,  and  handed  it  round  to  the  gentlemen  on  the 
bench  of  which  there  were  many ;  but,  as  no  person 
present  seemed  in  the  least  disposed  to  adopt  your 
sentiments,  as  there  appeared  a  perfect  satisfaction  and 
acquiescence  in  the  measures  proposed  (except  from  a 
Mr.  Williamson,  who  was  for  adopting  your  advice 
literally,  without  obtaining  a  second  voice  on  his  side), 
and  as  the  gentlemen,  to  whom  the  letter  was  shown, 
advised  me  not  to  have  it  read,  as  it  was  not  like  to 
make  a  convert,  and  repugnant,  (some  of  them 
thought,)  to  the  very  principle  we  were  contending 
for,  I  forbore  to  offer  it  otherwise  than  in  the  manner 
above  mentioned ;  which  I  shall  be  sorry  for,  if  it  gives 
you  any  dissatisfaction  in  not  having  your  sentiments 
read  to  the  county  at  large,  instead  of  communicating 

3  Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  ii,  p.  420,  note. 


The  Cockatrice's  Egg          233 

them  to  the  first  people  in  it,  by  offering  them  the 
letter  in  the  manner  I  did. 

"  That  I  differ  very  widely  from  you,  in  respect  to 
the  mode  of  obtaining  a  definite  repeal  of  the  acts  so 
much  and  so  justly  complained  of,  I  shall  not  hesitate 
to  acknowledge;  and  that  this  difference  in  opinion 
may  probably  proceed  from  the  different  constructions 
we  put  upon  the  conduct  and  intention  of  the  ministry 
may  also  be  true;  but,  as  I  see  nothing,  on  the  one 
hand,  to  induce  a  belief  that  the  Parliament  would  em- 
brace a  favorable  opportunity  of  repealing  acts,  which 
they  go  on  with  great  rapidity  to  pass,  and  in  order  to 
enforce  their  tyrannical  system ;  and,  on  the  other,  I 
observe,  or  think  I  observe,  that  government  is  pur- 
suing a  regular  plan  at  the  expense  of  law  and  justice 
to  overthrow  our  constitutional  rights  and  liberties, 
how  can  I  expect  any  redress  from  a  measure,  which 
has  been  ineffectually  tried  already?  For,  Sir,  what 
is  it  we  are  contending  against?  Is  it  against  paying 
the  duty  of  three  pence  per  pound  on  tea  because 
burthensome?  No,  it  is  the  right  only,  we  have  all 
along  disputed,  and  to  this  end  we  have  already 
petitioned  his  Majesty  in  as  humble  and  dutiful  man- 
ner as  subjects  could  do.  Nay,  more,  we  applied  to 
the  House  of  Lords  and  House  of  Commons  in  their 
different  legislative  capacities,  setting  forth,  that,  as 
Englishmen,  we  could  not  be  deprived  of  this  essential 
and  valuable  part  of  a  constitution.  If,  then,  as  the 
fact  really  is,  it  is  against  the  right  of  taxation  that 
we  now  do,  and,  (as  I  before  said,)  all  along  have  con- 
tended, why  should  they  suppose  an  exertion  of  this 
power  would  be  less  obnoxious  now  than  formerly? 
And  what  reasons  have  we  to  believe,  that  they  would 


234  George  Washington 

make  a  second  attempt,  while  the  same  sentiments 
filled  the  breast  of  every  American,  if  they  did  not  in- 
tend to  enforce  it  if  possible? 

"  The  conduct  of  the  Boston  people  could  not  justify 
the  rigor  of  their  measures,  unless  there  had  been  a 
requisition  of  payment  and  refusal  of  it;  nor  did  that 
measure  require  an  act  to  deprive  the  government  of 
Massachusetts  Bay  of  their  charter,  or  to  exempt  of- 
fenders from  trial  in  the  place  where  offences  were 
committed,  as  there  was  not,  nor  could  not  be,  a  single 
instance  produced  to  manifest  the  necessity  of  it.  Are 
not  all  these  things  self  evident  proofs  of  a  fixed  and 
uniform  plan  to  tax  us?  If  we  want  further  proofs, 
do  not  all  the  debates  in  the  House  of  Commons  serve 
to  confirm  this  ?  And  has  not  General  Gage's  conduct 
since  his  arrival,  (in  stopping  the  address  of  his  Coun- 
cil, and  publishing  a  proclamation  more  becoming  a 
Turkish  bashaw,  than  an  English  governor,  declaring 
it  treason  to  associate  in  any  manner  by  which  the 
commerce  of  Great  Britain  is  to  be  affected,)  exhibited 
an  unexampled  testimony  of  the  most  despotic  system 
of  tyranny,  that  ever  was  practised  in  a  free  govern- 
ment? In  short,  what  further  proofs  are  wanted  to 
satisfy  one  of  the  designs  of  the  ministry,  than  their 
own  acts,  which  are  uniform  and  plainly  tending  to  the 
same  point,  nay,  if  I  mistake  not,  avowedly  to  fix  the 
right  of  taxation?  What  hope  then  from  petitioning, 
when  they  tell  us,  that  now  or  never  is  the  time  to  fix 
the  matter?  Shall  we,  after  this,  whine  and  cry  for 
relief,  when  we  have  already  tried  it  in  vain  ?  Or  shall 
we  supinely  sit  and  see  one  province  after  another  fall 
a  prey  to  despotism  ?  If  I  was  in  any  doubt,  as  to  the 
right  which  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  had  to 


The  Cockatrice's  Egg-          235 

tax  us  without  our  consent,  I  should  most  heartily  co- 
incide with  you  in  opinion,  that  to  petition,  and  petition 
only,  is  the  proper  method  to  apply  for  relief;  because 
we  should  then  be  asking  a  favor,  and  not  claiming  a 
right,  which,  by  the  law  of  nature  and  our  constitution, 
we  are,  in  my  opinion,  indubitably  entitled  to.  I  should 
even  think  it  criminal  to  go  further  than  this,  under 
such  an  idea ;  but  none  such  I  have.  I  think  the  Par- 
liament of  Great  Britain  hath  no  more  right  to  put 
their  hands  into  my  pocket,  without  my  consent,  than 
I  have  to  put  my  hands  into  yours  for  money ;  and  this 
being  already  urged  to  them  in  a  firm,  but  decent 
manner,  by  all  the  colonies,  what  reason  is  there  to  ex- 
pect any  thing  from  their  justice? 

"  As  to  the  resolution  for  addressing  the  throne,  I 
own  to  you,  Sir,  I  think  the  whole  might  as  well  have 
been  expunged.  I  expect  nothing  from  the  measure, 
nor  should  my  voice  have  accompanied  it,  if  the  non- 
importation scheme  was  intended  to  be  retarded  by  it ; 
for  I  am  convinced,  as  much  as  I  am  of  my  existence, 
that  there  is  no  relief  but  in  their  distress ;  and  I  think, 
at  least  I  hope,  that  there  is  public  virtue  enough  left 
among  us  to  deny  ourselves  every  thing  but  the  bare 
necessaries  of  life  to  accomplish  this  end.  This  we 
have  a  right  to  do,  and  no  power  upon  earth  can  compel 
us  to  do  otherwise,  till  they  have  first  reduced  us  to 
the  most  abject  state  of  slavery  that  ever  was  designed 
for  mankind.  The  stopping  our  exports  would,  no 
doubt,  be  a  shorter  cut  than  the  other  to  effect  this 
purpose  ;  but  if  we  owe  money  to  Great  Britain,  nothing 
but  the  last  necessity  can  justify  the  non-payment  of 
it ;  and,  therefore,  I  have  great  doubts  upon  this  head, 


236  George  Washington 

and  wish  to  see  the  other  method  first  tried,  which  is 
legal  and  will  facilitate  these  payments. 

"  I  cannot  conclude  without  expressing  some  con- 
cern, that  I  should  differ  so  widely  in  sentiment  from 
you,  in  a  matter  of  such  great  moment  and  general 
import;  and  should  much  distrust  my  own  judgment 
upon  the  occasion,  if  my  nature  did  not  recoil  at  the 
thought  of  submitting  to  measures,  which  I  think  sub- 
versive of  every  thing  that  I  ought  to  hold  dear  and 
valuable,  and  did  I  not  find,  at  the  same  time,  that  the 
voice  of  mankind  is  with  me."  * 


"  To  BRYAN  FAIRFAX 

"  Mount  Vernon,  24  August,  1774. 
"  DEAR  SIR, 

"  Your  letter  of  the  5th  instant  came  to  this  place, 
forwarded  by  Mr.  Ramsay,  a  few  days  after  my  return 
from  Williamsburg,  and  I  delayed  acknowledging  it 
sooner,  in  the  hopes  that  I  should  find  time,  before  I 
began  my  other  journey  to  Philadelphia,  to  answer  it 
fully,  if  not  satisfactorily ;  but,  as  much  of  my  time  has 
been  engrossed  since  I  came  home  by  company,  by 
your  brother's  sale  and  the  business  consequent  there- 
upon, in  writing  letters  to  England  and  now  in  attend- 
ing to  my  own  domestic  affairs  previous  to  my  de- 
parture as  above,  I  find  it  impossible  to  bestow  so  much 
time  and  attention  to  the  subject  matter  of  your  letter 
as  I  could  wish  to  do,  and  therefore,  must  rely  upon 
your  good  nature  and  candor  in  excuse  for  not  reply- 
ing attempting  it. 

"  In  truth,  persuaded  as  I  am,  that  you  have  read 
'Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  ii,  p.  420. 


The  Cockatrice's  Egg          237 

all  the  political  pieces,  which  compose  a  large  share  of 
the  Gazette  at  this  time,  I  should  think  it,  but  for  your 
request,  a  piece  of  inexcusable  arrogance  in  me,  to 
make  the  least  essay  towards  a  change  in  your  political 
opinions ;  for  I  am  sure  I  have  no  new  lights  to  throw 
upon  the  subject,  or  any  other  arguments  to  offer  in 
support  of  my  own  doctrine,  than  what  you  have  seen ; 
and  could  only  in  general  add,  that  an  innate  spirit  of 
freedom  first  told  me,  that  the  measures,  which  ad- 
ministration hath  for  some  time  been,  and  now  are 
most  violently  pursuing,  are  repugnant  to  every  prin- 
ciple of  natural  justice;  whilst  much  abler  heads  than 
my  own  hath  fully  convinced  me,  that  it  is  not  only  re- 
pugnant to  natural  right,  but  subversive  of  the  laws 
and  constitution  of  Great  Britain  itself,  in  the  establish- 
ment of  which  some  of  the  best  blood  in  the  Kingdom 
hath  been  spilt.  Satisfied,  then,  that  the  acts  of  a 
British  Parliament  are  no  longer  governed  by  the  prin- 
ciples of  justice,  that  it  is  trampling  upon  the  valuable 
rights  of  Americans,  confirmed  to  them  by  charter  and 
the  constitution  they  themselves  boast  of,  and  convinced 
beyond  the  smallest  doubt  that  these  measures  are  the 
result  of  deliberation,  and  attempted  to  be  carried  into 
execution  by  the  hand  of  power,  is  it  a  time  to  trifle,  or 
risk  our  cause  upon  petitions,  which  with  difficulty  ob- 
tain access,  and  afterwards  are  thrown  by  with  the  ut- 
most contempt?  Or  should  we,  because  heretofore 
unsuspicious  of  design,  and  then  unwilling  to  enter 
into  disputes  with  the  mother  country,  go  on  to  bear 
more,  and  forbear  to  enumerate  our  just  causes  of  com- 
plaint ?  For  my  own  part,  I  shall  not  undertake  to  say 
where  the  line  between  Great  Britain  and  the  colonies 
should  be  drawn ;  but  I  am  clearly  of  opinion,  that  one 


238  George  Washington 

ought  to  be  drawn,  and  our  rights  clearly  ascertained. 
I  could  wish,  I  own,  that  the  dispute  had  been  left  to 
posterity  to  determine,  but  the  crisis  is  arrived  when 
we  must  assert  our  rights,  or  submit  to  every  im- 
position, that  can  be  heaped  upon  us,  till  custom  and 
use  shall  make  us  as  tame  and  abject  slaves,  as  the 
blacks  we  rule  over  with  such  arbitrary  sway. 

"  I  intended  to  have  wrote  no  more  than  an  apology 
for  not  writing ;  but  I  find  I  am  insensibly  running  into 
a  length  I  did  not  expect,  and  therefore  shall  conclude 
with  remarking,  that  if  you  disavow  the  right  of  Par- 
liament to  tax  us,  (unrepresented  as  we  are,)  we  only 
differ  in  respect  to  the  mode  of  opposition,  and  this 
difference  principally  arises  from  your  belief,  that  they 
— the  Parliament,  I  mean, — want  a  decent  opportunity 
to  repeal  the  acts ;  whilst  I  am  as  fully  convinced,  as  I 
am  of  my  own  existence,  that  there  has  been  a  regular, 
systematic  plan  formed  to  enforce  them,  and  that 
nothing  but  unanimity  in  the  colonies  (a  stroke  they 
did  not  expect)  and  firmness,  can  prevent  it.  It  seems 
from  the  best  advices  from  Boston,  that  General  Gage 
is  exceedingly  disconcerted  at  the  quiet  and  steady  con- 
duct of  the  people  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay,  and  at 
the  measures  pursuing  by  the  other  governments;  as 
I  dare  say  he  expected  to  have  forced  those  oppressed 
people  into  compliances,  or  irritated  them  to  acts  of 
violence  before  this,  for  a  more  colorable  pretense  of 
ruling  that  and  the  other  colonies  with  a  high  hand. 
But  I  am  done."  1 

In  these  letters  Washington  simply  shows  a  high 
degree  of  common-sense  intelligence — no  genius 

1  Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  ii,  p.  429. 


The  Cockatrice's  Egg          239 

for  oratory,  rhetoric,  or  expression,  except  in  the 
lucid  presentation  of  plain  facts  such  as  they  ap- 
peared to  the  average  country  gentleman  of  the  day. 
"  When  the  people  meddle  with  reasoning,"  said 
Voltaire  almost  at  this  very  time,  "  all  is  lost." 

Washington  was  one  of  this  thinking  mob.  The 
calm,  contemplative  life  at  Mount  Vernon  left  him 
leisure  to  think. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

"  THE   DEADLY   TEA-CHEST  " 

EVOLUTIONS  frequently  concentrate  them- 
f\  selves  in  the  nutshell  of  a  popular  cry :  even 
ecclesiastical  revolutions  have  thus  stamped  them- 
selves with  the  ineffaceable  stigma  of  revolt.  At 
the  Reformation,  "  the  just  shall  live  by  faith  "  be- 
came the  watchword  of  the  reformers.  At  the 
period  of  the  French  Revolution,  "  liberte,  egalite, 
fraternite  "  rang  on  all  the  air  of  the  time.  In  the 
Revolution  of  1688,  chartered  rights  and  institutions 
were  the  dominant  thought  of  statesmen  and  popu- 
lace alike,  and  the  thought  coined  itself  into  pithy 
and  golden  phrases  pregnant  with  historic  meaning ; 
occasionally,  as  in  Egmont's  time,  some  simple 
object,  like  the  beggar's  scrip,  was  snatched  up  and 
became  the  visible  tabernacle  of  the  indwelling  rev- 
olutionary spirit. 

In  America,  between  1765  and  1775,  "Liberty, 
Property,  No  Stamps !  "  rang  from  New  Hampshire 
to  Georgia;  and  even  when  the  odious  Act — all 
except  the  tax  on  tea — was  repealed,  the  fury  of 
the  popular  imagination  fixed  on  tea  as  the  symbol 
of  an  infernal  sovereignty,  which  popular  patience 
would  no  longer  brook. 

Tea — tea,  the  tiny  monosyllable  of  three  letters, 
240 


WASHINGTON  ARCH,  NEW  YORK  CITY. 


'. 


'The  Deadly  Tea-Chest"       241 

embodied  in  its  small  self,  to  the  mind  of  that  day, 
the  whole  creed  of  tyranny.  From  the  first  whiff 
of  this  delightful  beverage,  wafted  to  us  in  old 
Pepys's  Diary  of  28th  September,  1660,  "  I  did 
send  for  a  cup  of  tee  (a  China  drink)  of  which  I 
had  never  drank  before."  Two  years  later  he 
writes :  "  Home,  and  there  find  my  wife  making  of 
tea,  a  drink  which  Mr.  Felling  the  Pothicary  tells  her 
is  good  for  her  cold  and  defluxions  " :  from  this 
time,  the  tea-kettles  of  England  multiplied  its  con- 
sumption to  more  than  five  millions  of  pounds;  in 
every  household  of  the  United  Kingdom,  Camellia 
theifera,  whether  of  the  Thea  sinensis  variety  of 
Linnaeus,  or  of  other  varieties  and  graftings,  had 
become  indispensable  to  a  well-ordered  household. 
Millions  of  tea-kettles  steamed  merrily  over  millions 
of  hearths,  waiting  for  the  cunningly  rolled  leaves 
or  fragrant  powders  to  be  steeped,  for  the  delecta- 
tion of  lonely  fireside  or  literary  gathering.  His- 
toric tea-bibbers  like  Dr.  Johnson  and  Mrs.  Thrale 
have  been  handed  down  to  posterity,  on  an  equal 
footing  with  tobaccophiles  like  Lord  Tennyson  or 
coffee-drinkers  like  Napoleon.  Tea-houses  had 
sprung  up  like  magic  all  over  the  kingdom.  Of  the 
5,000,000  pounds  imported,  at  least  1,500,000  sent 
up  clouds  of  fragrant  steam  from  American  caddies. 
Washington  was  passionately  fond  of  tea,  and 
rivalled  the  great  lexicographer  in  his  devotion  to 
this  fluid,  enthusiastically  joining  his  contempora- 
ries in  the  institution  of  the  afternoon  tea. 

Tea,  in  short,  represented  a  harmless  luxury  in- 


242  George  Washington 

dulged  in  by  thousands  who,  surmounting  the  stiff 
prices,  contrived  to  get  it  for  the  alleviation  of  the 
long  evenings,  or  for  a  mild  and  agreeable  medicine 
described  by  Pepys. 

Yet  tea — tea,  the  most  harmless  and  delectable 
of  drinks,  bubbling  peacefully  in  its  kettle,  or  steep- 
ing demurely  in  the  exquisite  pots  prepared  es- 
pecially for  it — now  became  the  sign  and  symbol 
of  Revolution,  red,  ruthless,  infuriate! 

"  So  for  the  next  three  years  tea  was  the  symbol 
with  which  the  hostile  spirits  conjured.  It  stood  for 
everything  that  true  freemen  loathe.  In  the  deadly 
tea-chest  lurked  the  complete  surrender  of  self-gov- 
ernment, the  payment  of  governors  and  judges  by  the 
crown,  the  arbitrary  suppression  of  legislatures,  the 
denial  of  the  principle  that,  freemen  can  be  taxed  only 
by  their  own  representatives.  So  long  as  they  were 
threatened  with  tea,  the  colonists  would  not  break  the 
non-intercourse  agreement.  Once  the  merchants  of 
New  York  undertook  to  order  from  England  various 
other  articles  than  tea,  and  the  news  was  greeted  all 
over  the  country  with  such  fury,  that  nothing  more 
of  the  sort  was  attempted  openly.  As  for  tea  itself 
shipped  from  England,  one  would  as  soon  have 
thought  of  trying  to  introduce  the  Black  Death."  1 

The  tea  drunk  by  2,500,000  people  did  not  weigh 
an  atom  in  this  balance  in  comparison  with  the 
principle  at  stake.  At  first  it  had  been  stamps, 
whose  heraldic  device  of  the  royal  arms — two  lions 
rampant  upholding  a  much-quartered  shield — 

1  Fiske,  Essays  Historical  and  Literary,  vol.  ii,  p.  186. 


'The  Deadly  Tea-Chest"       243 

seemed,  to  the  humorous  imagination  of  the  day, 
to  dance  on  the  liberties  of  the  colonies ;  now  it  was 
tea,  which  after  the  impost  on  glass,  painter's 
colours,  red  and  white  lead,  still  remained  proud  and 
defiant,  a  revolutionary  plant  on  the  ministry's  tax- 
list,  as  the  symbol  of  British  power  and  sovereignty 
never  to  be  yielded  or  removed. 

And  so  the  childish  contention — infinitely  child- 
ish it  would  seem  to  us  now,  had  not  great  funda- 
mental principles  of  self-taxation  underlaid  it — 
went  on,  until  seventeen  millions  of  pounds  of  this 
insidious  vegetable  had  heaped  themselves  up  in  the 
East  India  Company's  warehouses. 

The  American  nation  was  young  then,  and  apolo- 
gists might  attribute  this  abnormal  excitement  to 
over-strained  nerves  and  juvenility  in  general ;  the 
very  passion  for  tea  might  have  turned  its  brain  into 
a  passion  against  tea,  as  the  fetish  of  an  over-excited 
fancy. 

But  the  ever-increasing  note  of  indignation, 
traceable  in  the  letters  of  Washington  in  our  last 
chapter,  now  swelled  to  a  great  diapason  of  discon- 
tent. It  was  like  the  breath  of  one  of  those  cyclonic 
storms  far  in  the  West :  beginning  as  a  whisper, 
almost  as  a  lullaby  of  feverish  unrest  at  its  birth 
in  the  mountains,  it  rolls  eastward,  swift  and  irre- 
sistible, gathering  volume  and  vindictiveness  as  it 
sweeps  on,  until  the  hurricane-point  is  reached. 

Washington's  admirable  presentation  of  the  calm, 
common-sense  side  of  the  troubles,  as  viewed  by  the 
typical  Virginia  gentleman  of  1765,  was  no  less 


244  George  Washington 

effective,  though  •  much  more  dignified,  than  the 
wild  turmoil  of  speech  that  prevailed  in  some  of  the 
other  colonies. 

The  north-eastern  colonies  were  indeed  strenuous 
examples  of  precocious  political  development,  a  de- 
velopment which  unlike  the  radiant  adolescence  of 
the  South,  had  been  stimulated  less  by  suns  than 
snows,  less  by  soft  open-air  exercises  and  luxurious 
plantation  life,  than  by  granite  hills,  grim  icicles  and 
cutting  blasts:  Boreas  rather  than  Zephyr  presided 
over  the  New  England  household.  And  it  was  pre- 
cisely these  ill-favoured  surroundings,  which  might 
be  called  lovely  and  majestic  only  when  they  melted 
into  the  emerald  curves  of  the  Green  Mountains,  or 
the  opaline  crests  of  Mount  Washington,  or  gathered 
into  exquisite  lakes  that  tremble  like  quicksilver  in 
the  "  pockets  "  of  the  Maine  forests — it  was  these 
very  ill-favoured  surroundings  that  evoked  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  little  political  societies  which 
the  world  has  seen,  since  Athenian  democracy  met 
in  the  agora  and  discussed  the  policy  of  Xerxes  or 
of  Sparta. 

"  Massachusetts,"  like  "  Virginia,"  was  originally 
one  of  those  vague  geographic  terms,  whose  inclu- 
siveness  stretched  over  the  hemisphere  like  the 
streamers  of  the  zodiacal  light,  touching  nothing  but 
embracing  everything.  The  generous  autocrats  of 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  gave  away 
lands  by  parallels  of  latitude,  continents,  worlds, 
without  even  questioning  the  right  to  give.  Massa- 
chusetts, at  the  time  of  which  we  are  speaking,  em- 


'The  Deadly  Tea-Chest"       245 

braced  the  vast  and  picturesque  territory  of  Maine, 
whose  French  name  recalled  its  Gallic  antecedents. 
On  its  granite  foundations,  hidden  out  of  sight  by 
deep  cushions  of  luxuriant  grass  and  interminable 
stretches  of  spice-breathing  conifera,  had  planted 
themselves  two  hundred  lively  little  towns,  whose 
triple  glories  were  the  grammar-school,  the  town- 
meeting,  or  ancient  folk-moot  of  the  Germanic  race, 
and  the  Puritan  meeting-house.  From  the  begin- 
ning, all  New  England  believed  in  this  trinity, 
whatever  the  later  cavilling  of  its  Unitarian  eccle- 
siastics might  be.  Education,  free  discussion,  village 
politics  grew  to  be  the  "  fad,"  the  infatuation  of 
the  two  hundred  thousand  white  people  who  had 
made  this  wilderness  blossom  like  a  rose,  and  planted 
a  fruit-tree  where  a  prickly  thistle  had  grown  before. 
The  country  lanes  were  full  of  decent  little  villages 
whose  tapering  church-spires  were,  at  once,  monu- 
ments of  the  new  life,  and  reminiscences  of  the  far- 
away English  homes  from  which  the  villagers  had 
come.  Everything  buzzed  and  hummed  with  hearty 
activities;  the  rudely  shaped  dwellings  were  often 
the  handiwork  of  the  indwellers,  built  to  last,  and 
furnished  with  every  reasonable  convenience.  In 
some  cases,  the  nails  and  wrought-iron  work  and 
simple  furnishings  were  the  direct  offspring  of  the 
toil  of  men  who  attached  their  vigorous  hiero- 
glyphic to  the  Declaration,  or  founded  a  line 
punctuated  to  the  present  time  with  distinguished 
names.  In  time,  the  Mayflower  budded  into  a  won- 
derful world  of  leaf,  and  blossom  and  fruit — a 


246  George  Washington 

floating  garden  which  had  brought  the  Old  World 
to  the  New — and  infinitely  more,  for  here  even  the 
new-born  children  of  the  Newest  Testament  be- 
queathed by  the  Old  to  the  New,  along  with  a  world 
of  new-born  possibilities,  hopes,  ambitions — new 
eyes  to  look  at  things,  new  brains  to  think  of  them, 
new  mouths  to  speak  and,  after  a  while — to  sing  of 
them  in  strains  sung  the  world  over.  At  first  all 
seemed  "  granulation,"  disintegration,  Congrega- 
tionalism of  an  independent  touch-me-not  kind, 
most  unpromising  for  future  union  and  harmony, 
discordant  notes  scattered  on  the  hills  without  one 
thought  of  those  high  federal  harmonies  one  day  to 
flow  from  these. 

It  had  required  just  one  hundred  and  fifty  years 
from  the  first  step  on  Plymouth  Rock  to  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Revolution,  when  Boston,  now  a  town 
of  eighteen  thousand  folk  enthroned  on  its  penin- 
sula, seemed  to  push  forth  its  tongue  of  flame  into 
the  blue  bay,  and  speak  wrath  and  defiance  to  the 
venerable  mother  on  the  other  side  of  the  water. 
For  in  the  century  and  a  half  just  elapsed  the  com- 
monwealth of  Massachusetts  Bay  had  become 
grizzled  in  the  Indian  wars,  wonderfully  wise  in  its 
own  conceit,  a  trifle  supercilious  in  its  intellectual 
arrogance,  petulant  in  the  extreme  to  outside  med- 
dling, jealous  of  its  own  privileges  and  of  the  pre- 
rogatives of  others,  afflicted  with  beginnings  of  that 
intellectual  insomnia  which  has  been  its  character- 
istic from  that  day  to  this,  perpetually  peeping  over 
its  neighbour's  fences  to  see  what  people  over  there 


'The  Deadly  Tea-Chest"       247 

are  doing,  yet  scouring  and  scourging  its  own  pots 
and  kettles  to  the  ultimate  degree  of  brightness.  A 
curious,  inquiring  prying  and  peeping  into  corners 
of  grandmother's  cupboard  marked  this  infant  com- 
monwealth :  not  to  meddle  with  religion  was  a  sin, 
not  to  meddle  with  politics  was  a  shame,  not  to  go 
to  town-meeting,  not  to  go  to  something  when  you 
were  duly  elected,  was  a  crime.  The  highest  sense 
of  public  duty  grew  in  these  people  as  weeds  grew  in 
others :  civic  pride,  municipal  virtue,  vast  concern  in 
the  doings  of  legislatures  and  assemblies,  endless 
patience  in  listening  to  endless  debate,  provided  the 
subject  was  improvement,  reform,  education,  libra- 
ries, schools,  beneficence ;  the  ears  of  the  New  Eng- 
landers  would  gloat  for  ever  over  these  magnetic 
topics,  and  listen  far  into  the  night  to  the  proposi- 
tions of  Selectman  This  or  Assemblyman  That, 
designed  to  introduce  the  Golden  Age  at  once,  with- 
out a  moment's  delay,  on  the  banks  of  the  Charles, 
the  Merrimac,  or  the  Penobscot. 

John  Harvard,  himself,  had  been  born  not  far 
from  Shakspere's  town,  and  had  founded  an  institu- 
tion just  outside  of  Boston,  which  had  given  a  cer- 
tain Shaksperian  turn  and  versatility  to  the  culture 
of  New  England,  as  the  sister  institution  at  Wil- 
liamsburg  had  imprinted  a  kind  of  Miltonic  elo- 
quence and  intonation  on  the  early  culture  of 
Virginia.  Every  year,  the  whitest  fleece,  the  most 
unblemished  lambs  of  Harvard  went  forth  into  the 
ecclesiastical  fold,  and  shepherded  the  souls  of  New 
England  along  the  paths  at  first  of  rigid  Puritanism, 


248  George  Washington 

then  of  orthodoxy  less  cold,  clear,  passionless,  final- 
ly, into  the  by-paths  of  a  heterdoxy  which  insisted 
only  on  the  blameless  life  and  the  lofty  ideal.  Har- 
vard, indeed,  was  the  one  institution  to  which  New 
England  might  point  with  absolute  pride,  as  abso- 
lutely typical  both  of  its  life  and  of  its  ideal.  It  was 
the  noble  child  of  a  young  man  just  one-and-thirty, 
whose  gift  of  three  hundred  volumes  has  grown  to 
more  than  as  many  hundred  thousands,  and  whose 
few  hundred  pounds  have  multiplied,  like  the  Bib- 
lical ten  talents  put  out  at  interest,  almost  exclusively 
from  the  splendid  munificence  of  private  individuals. 

William  and  Mary  College  was  the  offspring  of 
a  King  and  a  Queen,  and  from  the  moment  of  its 
birth  was  hampered  by  its  royal  birthmark. 

A  spiritual  promenade  among  the  galleries  of 
New  England  worthies  reveals  long  lines  of  clear- 
cut  faces  marked  with  the  insignia  of  high  thought, 
— pale,  intellectual,  often  fierce  with  the  struggles 
of  inward  passion  and  inward  suffering,  highly 
spiritualised  masks  burnt  translucent  by  the  fires  of 
a  soul,  prophetic  of  the  Edwardses  and  Hutchinsons 
and  Adamses  yet  to  come,  high-born  men  and 
women  whose  cold  eyes  flash  steel  or  Stoic  on  occa- 
sion, portraits  all  nerve  and  muscle,  as  the  wrinkling 
centuries  move  on  and  stamp  their  infinite  crow's- 
feet  into  the  gelatine  mould  of  the  soul,  slightly 
starchy,  ministerial,  clerical  here  and  there,  flakes 
of  clear  quartz  with  veins  of  gold  in  it ;  a  wondrous 
collection  of  human  beings  whom  Copley  or  Trum- 
bull  or  Peale  or  Stuart  have  singled  out  from  the 


JOHN  ADAMS. 
From  a  steel  engraving. 


"The  Deadly  Tea-Chest"       249 

passing  crowd,  and  fixed  for  ever  on  the  canvas  in 
speaking  lineaments. 

It  was  out  of  this  New  England  that  that  monu- 
mental group  of  men  (not  yet  large  enough  to  be 
called  heroes)  sprang,  who  turn  and  gaze  at  us  for 
a  moment  out  of  their  golden  frames  and  pass  on : 
Samuel  Adams,  John  Adams,  Thomas  Hutchinson, 
Benjamin  Franklin,  James  Otis,  Josiah  Quincy, 
Joseph  Warren,  even  Paul  Revere,  "  the  patriot 
Mercury "  on  his  eternal  Valkyrie-ride  of  news- 
telling  to  the  remoter  colonies.  How  these  figures 
flame  as  we  gaze  at  them,  filling  with  an  invisible 
life,  quivering  with  an  unseen  intelligence,  longing 
to  tell  us  the  story  of  their  lives,  eager  to  communi- 
cate the  secrets  of  the  year,  1764,  1768;  of  Feb.  22 
and  March  5,  1770;  of  Hutchinson's  "  spy  "  letters; 
of  the  "Indians,"  of  Dec.  16,  1773;  of  tea-party 
and  tea-ships  as  they  sailed  gaily  into  Boston  Bay, 
not  knowing  it  was  the  open  mouth  of  the  dragon ! 

For  these  dates  and  events  stand  out  in  bead-like 
distinctness  among  the  linked  anniversaries  of  the 
decade,  incising  their  notches  deep  into  the  living 
marble  of  the  time. 

In  1765,  the  Virginia  Resolutions  of  Patrick 
Henry,  against  the  Stamp  Act,  had  been  the  drop 
of  rennet  that  ran  the  colonies  together  in  massive 
coagulation.  Three  years  later,  owing  to  the  enor- 
mous pressure  of  opinion  at  home  and  abroad,  the 
odious  Act  was  repealed,  and  another  cockatrice's 
egg,  still  more  odious, — import  tax  on  tea,  glass, 
and  painter's  material, — began  to  hatch  out  its 


250  George  Washington 

"  vermin."  Troops  arrive  to  enforce  the  Revenue 
Acts,  and  the  curious  little  episode,  dignified  as 
"  The  Boston  Massacre,"  stains  the  5th  of  March, 
1770,  with  a  red  more  indelible  than  Rizzio's 
blood.  The  Committees  of  Correspondence  and  the 
Circular  Letters  of  legislatures  travel  their  planetary 
way  from  province  to  province  during  this  decade, 
informing  the  people  what  was  being  done,  and 
sending  a  glare  of  illumination  into  wildernesses 
unreached  as  yet  by  the  Boston  newspapers,  or  the 
Virginia  Gazette.  Exact  historians,  scrupulous  of 
their  dotted  i's  and  crossed  t's,  still  battle  over  the 
question  whether  Massachusetts  or  Virginia  origi- 
nated the  Circular  Letter  and  the  Committee  of 
Correspondence,  those  all-powerful  agencies  in  the 
spread  of  the  Revolution ;  whoever  be  the  originator, 
they  were  in  virulent  activity  at  this  time  and  earlier, 
and  were  the  honeycombs  in  which  the  honey  of 
the  deflowered  fields  was  stored  up  for  future  use, — 
honey  often  of  the  sardonic  kind,  turning  into  bitter- 
ness on  the  tongue  of  the  consumer. 

At  last,  we  reach  that  moonlight  night  of  icy 
December  of  the  expiring  year  1773,  when,  as  by 
one  giant  exhalation,  all  the  pent-up  fiery  energy 
of  the  ten  years  gone  by,  concentrated  to  fury  and 
becoming  ungovernable,  wrenched  itself  loose  and 
poured  forth  in  a  stream  of  rebellion. 

Ludicrous  as  "  the  Boston  Tea  Party  "  may  ap- 
pear to  some  historians  commenting  with  exagger- 
ated hyperbole  on  the  revolutionary  days,  the  event 
was  kindred  in  spirit  to  the  mutilation  of  the  Hermcc 


; '  The  Deadly  Tea-Chest "       251 

which  influenced  Athens  in  the  Peloponnesian 
war.  Samuel  Adams  and  Alcibiades  were  far  apart 
in  most  particulars,  but  there  are  points  enough  of 
resemblance  between  them. 

If  Massachusetts  was  the  tongue  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, Samuel  Adams,  "  the  chief  incendiary,"  was  its 
chosen  mouthpiece.  This  man,  by  pure  intellectual 
ability,  shrewdness,  sharpness,  "  Yankee  wit,"  or 
whatever  one  may  call  it,  became  everything  that  it 
was  possible  for  a  man  of  that  day  to  become,  ex- 
cept President  of  the  United  States — selectman,  clerk 
of  the  assembly,  assemblyman,  speaker,  delegate  to 
the  first  Continental  Congress,  lieutenant-governor, 
governor,  and  senator  of  the  United  States,  rising 
like  Washington  with  the  buoyant  irrepressible  force 
of  which  we  have  previously  spoken.  As  the  hero 
of  all  the  events  that  led  straight  up  to  the  "  tea- 
party,"  Samuel  Adams,  the  incarnation  of  Massa- 
chusetts, deserves  abundant  attention.  He  is  the 
chief  propulsive  force  of  his  time,  a  born  leader, 
standing  behind  every  forward  movement,  shoulder 
to  shoulder  with  every  difficulty,  not  a  passive 
Caryatid  merely  supporting  measures,  but  a  glow- 
ing sculptor,  rending  the  figure  out  of  the  mountain 
and  dragging  it  with  infinite  toil  over  the  sands  of 
the  desert. 

Hardly  a  resolution  of  the  town-meeting  or  the  as- 
sembly that  he  did  not  draft  or  pen  or  edit  or  emend. 
His  finger  was  in  every  pie :  he  lived  at  town-meet- 
ing rather  than  at  home,  and  when  he  slept,  doubt- 
less, dreamt  resolutions,  amendments,  remonstrances 


252  George  Washington 

to  King  and  Parliament.  He  was,  in  short,  one  of 
those  sublime  busybodies  (in  the  best  sense)  who 
meddle  with  everybody  else's  business,  and  with 
superlative  unselfishness  forget  their  own.  On  one 
of  the  currencies  of  1776  stood  the  following  legend : 

Fugio:  a  sun-dial:  MIND  YOUR  BUSINESS 

a  device  which  never  could  have  occurred  to  Samuel 
Adams,  for  "  minding  his  own  business  "  was  his 
last  thought  when  he  could  mind  the  public's. 

This  endless  attention  to  other  people's  affairs 
was  what  made  Adams  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, and  Massachusetts  a  crown  of  thorns  on 
the  brow  of  the  British  Parliament.  The  highest 
compliment  which  his  second  cousin,  John  Adams, 
could  pay  Charles  Thompson,  first  and  most  famous 
clerk  of  the  first  Continental  Congress  of  1774,  was 
that  "  he  was  the  Sam  Adams  of  Philadelphia." 

The  acute,  high-voiced,  soprano  civilisation  of 
the  New  England  of  this  period  was,  indeed,  a 
curious  mixture  of  femininity  and  intense  masculine 
strength.  Its  marked  characteristic  was  the  utter 
lack  of  self-control,  inability  to  hold  its  tongue,  ex- 
citability of  temper  more  usually  found  in  tropic 
latitudes,  and  a  "  gift  of  gab  "  perilous  in  the  ex- 
treme to  a  good  understanding  with  the  mother- 
country.  The  east  wind  had  entered  into  its  coun- 
sels and  constitution,  and  given  a  sharpness  to  the 
unruly  member  that  amounted  to  acerbity. 

As  the  magnificent  curves  of  the  New  World 
swept  north-eastward  in  graceful  zigzag  toward  the 


'The  Deadly  Tea-Chest"       253 

Arctic  Circle,  it  seemed  as  if  the  little  cluster  of 
battling  commonwealhs,  on  the  north-eastern  tip, 
were  being  purposely  pushed  out  into  the  tem- 
pestuous seas  to  steel  their  nerves,  as  tools  of  glitter- 
ing steel  are  given  edge  in  ice.  Indeed,  the  threshold 
of  the  Revolution  was  the  laboratory,  in  which  the 
edge-tools  of  New  England  speech  began  to  sharpen 
to  that  fineness  which,  only  fifty  years  later,  was  to 
come  to  artistic  consciousness  on  the  fastidious  lips 
of  Emerson  and  Hawthorne,  of  Longfellow  and  Poe. 
The  deep  Puritan  nature,  introverted  upon  itself, 
speculating  for  ever  upon  the  high  themes  of  Provi- 
dence and  Fate,  sunk  in  contemplation  of  the  Biblical 
narratives,  and  their  symbolic  application  to  the 
Puritan  world,  Hebraic  in  the  very  flash  of  the  eye 
and  the  utterance  of  the  circumcised  heart,  enveloped 
in  the  metaphors  of  the  Hebrew  Commonwealth,  as 
well  as  surrounded  by  the  conditions  of  the  Israelite 
wilderness,  awfully  smitten  of  conscience,  awfully 
conscious  of  sin  and  guilt, — the  deep  Puritan  nature 
began  to  develop  that  subtlety  and  eloquence,  which 
the  tinker  of  Bedford  jail  had  somehow  communi- 
cated to  his  followers  by  a  kind  of  mystic  chrism; 
the  germs  of  mysticism  and  transcendentalism,  al- 
ways latent  in  the  New  England  mind,  began  to  stir 
uneasily  in  their  sleep,  and  point  towards  germina- 
tion on  the  lips  of  the  Alcotts  and  Thoreaus,  Fullers 
and  Frothinghams,  Ripleys  and  Brook  Farm  folk 
of  a  generation  or  two  later. 

It  was  with  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people  of 
this  tried  and  clever  kind,  that  the  British  Empire, 


254  George  Washington 

through  its  constitution,  that  curious  compound  of 
law,  precedent,  tradition,  and  atmosphere,  was  about 
to  engage  in  deadly  combat. 

"  I  rejoice,"  said  Robertson  the  historian,  kins- 
man of  Patrick  Henry,  in  language  which  this  Vir- 
ginia statesman  might  himself  have  used,  "  I  rejoice 
that  a  million  free  men  in  America  will  now  be 
allowed  to  run  the  career  which  other  free  people 
have  held  before." 

When  the  Dartmouth,  the  Eleanor,  and  the  Beaver, 
therefore,  laden  with  342  chests  of  tea,  sailed  into 
Boston  harbour  with  bellying  shrouds  and  streaming 
pennants,  the  situation  looked  blue  indeed.  This 
was  the  electric  shock  that  thrilled  instantaneously 
through  the  loosely-membered  colonies,  and  welded 
the  links  together,  for  the  same  tea  that  saturated 
Boston  salt  water  with  its  myriads  of  fragrant 
granules  rotted  in  damp  cellars  in  Charleston,  South 
Carolina,  or  mouldered  and  blackened  in  the  tea- 
caddies  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia.  Tea,  the 
abhorred  stimulant,  once  typical  of  entrancing  even- 
ings at  Mrs.  Thrale's  and  Miss  Burney's,  floating 
in  our  brains  from  out  the  leaves  of  Johnson's  Dic- 
tionary and  the  tea-scented  Spectators — tea,  inter- 
lined with  "  Dunciads  "  and  "  Elegies,"  ascending 
delightfully  (with  stronger  aromas)  from  the 
manuscripts  of  Fielding,  De  Foe  and  Smollett,  and 
floating  hazily  over  the  whole  Georgian  era, — tea 
now  stood  for  Tyranny,  for  Taxation  without 
Representation,  for  thousandfold  forms  of  antago- 
nism never  imagined  before,  for  the  machinations  of 


'The  Deadly  Tea-Chest"       255 

the  British  cabinet  whose  fluctuations,  "  many  as  the 
waves,  one  as  the  sea,"  concentrated  their  insistence 
upon  the  one  central  conception  that  Parliament  was 
supreme  to  tax  the  colonies,  representation  or  no, 
representation.  Anti-tea  clubs  filled  the  land: 
spinsters  and  sedate  married  people  alike  eschewed 
the  poisonous  drink.  Tea  meant  Toryism;  no  tea 
meant  "  independency  "  as  the  quaint  word  (soon 
terrible  in  its  encyclopaedic  significance)  began  to 
be  written  in  Washington's  and  Franklin's  corres- 
pondence. All  over  the  land,  busy  activities  began 
to  spring  up:  looms  and  spindles  whizzed  and 
hummed  merrily  in  the  chimney  corner;  home  in- 
dustries of  all  sorts  started  into  being;  plantation 
life  in  Virginia  received  a  vast  stimulus  from  the 
non-importation  agreements;  men  began  to  re- 
member after  a  while  where  the  lead  mines  were, 
and  old  recipes  for  making  gunpowder  were  hunted 
up. 

It  was  an  ominous  sign  that  frigates  began  to 
take  the  place  of  merchant-vessels,  generals  began  to 
succeed  civilians  as  governors  of  Massachusetts  and 
the  other  colonies,  scarlet  coats  instead  of  tie-wigs 
and  black  gowns  spangled  the  entrance-steps  to 
court-houses  and  judicial  buildings ;  the  civilian  era 
was  over:  "Sam  Adams's  regiments"  (as  Lord 
North  called  them)  had  come  and  were  now  snugly 
ensconced  in  Boston  town  for  better  or  for  worse. 

The  momentous  struggle  was  at  hand. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE    STRUGGLE   BEGINS 

DROP  by  drop  the  cup  of  excitement  had  been 
filling  up  until  at  last,  in  1774,  the  brim  was 
reached  and  it  seemed  about  to  run  over.  Our  pre- 
ceding chapters  rehearsed  the  grievances  of  the 
decade,  the  vacillating  character  of  the  British  policy 
and  administration,  the  views  held  in  England  it- 
self as  to  the  impolicy  and  unrighteousness  of  the 
course  pursued  by  Grenville,  Townshend,  and  Lord 
North,  the  perils  of  the  standing  army  question, 
and  the  unwisdom  of  the  Island  Parliament  in  at- 
tempting to  impose  revenue  and  taxation  laws  on  a 
whole  continent,  thousands  of  miles  away,  absolutely 
without  representation  in  the  assembly  of  Great 
Britain. 

"  England  has  long  arms,"  threatened  one  of 
those  who  favoured  this  policy,  "  but  three  thousand 
miles  is  a  long  way  to  extend  them,"  was  the  quick 
retort. 

And  this  was  precisely  the  difficulty.  To  be  three 
thousand  miles  from  headquarters,  the  stormy  and 
treacherous  sea  between,  with  the  old-fashioned 
frigates  and  store-ships  lumbering  heavily  over  the 
distances ;  to  land  a  few  thousand  regulars  at  Boston, 
New  York,  and  Philadelphia,  behind  which  a  popu- 

256 


The  Struggle  Begins  257 

lation  of  three  millions  was  in  arms — undisciplined 
it  may  be — to  tease,  torment,  nag,  destroy  them 
force  by  force;  to  engage  in  a  hopeless  contest, 
contrary  to  all  the  dictates  of  reason,  justice,  and 
common  sense,  with  their  own  flesh  and  blood,  while 
France  and  Spain,  bursting  with  recent  hostility  and 
spleen,  looked  on,  waiting  the  chance  to  spring :  the 
epic  folly  of  such  a  course  was  apparent  to  Burke, 
Chatham,  and  Lord  Camden  from  the  beginning; 
and  a  far-sighted  child  might  have  foreseen  the  end. 

"  The  spirit  which  resists  your  taxation  in  Amer- 
ica," said  Chatham,  "  is  the  same  that  formerly  op- 
posed loans,  benevolences,  and  ship-money  in  Eng- 
land. .  .  .  This  glorious  spirit  of  Whiggism  animates 
three  millions  in  America  who  prefer  poverty  with 
liberty  to  gilded  chains  and  sordid  affluence,  and  who 
will  die  in  defence  of  their  rights  as  freemen.  .  .  . 
For  myself,  I  must  declare  that  in  all  my  reading  and 
observation — and  history  has  been  my  favorite  study 
— I  have  read  Thucydides,  and  I  have  studied  and 
admired  the  master  states  of  the  world — that  for 
solidity  of  reasoning,  force  of  sagacity,  and  wisdom 
of  -conclusion  under  such  a  complication  of  difficult 
circumstances,  no  nation  or  body  of  men  can  stand  in 
preference  to  the  General  Congress  at  Philadelphia. 
.  .  .  All  attempts  to  impose  servitude  upon  such  men, 
to  establish  despotism  over  such  a  mighty  continental 
nation,  must  be  vain,  must  be  fatal.  We  shall  be 
forced  ultimately  to  retract.  Let  us  retract  while  we 
can,  not  when  we  must !  " 1 

1  Lecky,  England  in  the  i8th  Century,  vol.  iii,  p.  577. 


258  George  Washington 

This  noble  outburst  spoke  the  plainest  common 
sense  to  the  assembled  wisdom  of  Great  Britain,  yet 
it  was  not  heeded.  It  seems,  indeed,  as  if  at  certain 
periods  madness  seized  a  whole  people,  as  it  seized 
the  French  in  1870-71  and  ran  riot  through  the 
popular  brain.  There  is  a  madness  of  just  indigna- 
tion and  a  madness  of  pure  folly.  Undoubtedly, 
says  Thackeray  in  his  Four  Georges,  the  American 
war  was  very  popular  in  England :  great  majorities 
supported  it  in  Parliament.  George  III.  even  en- 
joyed the  title  of  the  "  patriot  King,"  and  intrenched 
in  the  hereditary  stubbornness  which  was  character- 
istic of  the  Brunswick  line,  his  feeble  mind,  already 
flickering  on  the  verge  of  insanity,  fixed  itself  on 
the  one  idea  of  chastising  a  rebellious  people  and 
bringing  them  back  to  their  allegiance.  Amiable 
and  charming  as  the  monarch  appears  in  the  fas- 
cinating pages  of  Fanny  Burney,  where  he  appears 
completely  en  deshabille, — in  dressing-gown  and 
slippers  as  it  were, — he  possessed  an  inflexibility  of 
nature  that  could  not  be  turned,  once  an  idea  affect- 
ing the  royal  prerogative  had  fixed  itself  there. 

Of  this  end  of  the  actuating  causes  of  the  great 
struggle,  Jefferson  gave  a  clear  conception  when 
he  wrote : 

"  The  following  is  an  epitome  of  the  first  fifteen 
years  of  his  [George  III.]  reign.  The  colonies  were 
taxed  internally  and  externally;  their  essential  in- 
terests sacrificed  to  individuals  in  Great  Britain,  their 
legislatures  suspended ;  charters  annulled ;  trials  by 
juries  taken  away;  their  persons  subjected  to  trans- 


The  Struggle  Begins  259 

portation  across  the  Atlantic,  and  to  trial  before 
foreign  judicatories ;  their  supplications  for  redress 
thought  beneath  answer ;  themselves  published  as 
cowards  in  the  councils  of  their  mother-country  and 
courts  of  Europe ;  armed  troops  sent  amongst  them 
to  enforce  submission.  Between  these  could  be  no 
hesitation.  They  closed  in  the  appeal  to  arms.  They 
declared  themselves  independent  states.  They  con- 
federated together  into  one  great  republic ;  thus  se- 
curing to  every  state  the  benefit  of  an  union  of  their 
whole  force.  In  each  state  separately  a  new  form  of 
government  was  established."  1 

Meantime,  events  were  hurrying  on  in  America 
with  frightful  rapidity.  England  was  so  far  away, 
and  the  means  of  communication  so  slow  and  un- 
certain, that  historic  happenings  of  great  magnitude 
and  far-reaching  consequences  had  been  conceived, 
born,  and  realised,  before  an  intimation  of  their 
existence  reached  the  shores  of  Albion.  In  March, 
1774,  while  Boston  Bay  was  still  flavoured  with  the 
Bohea  that  had  been  thrown  into  it,  the  Boston  Port 
Bill  was  passed  in  retaliation  for  the  East  India 
Company's  tea,  the  port  was  sealed  up  hermetically 
against  outside  trade,  and  Parliament  undertook 
to  remove  the  capital  to  Salem,  a  word  which  with 
bitter  irony  meant  "  Peace."  News  of  what  was 
going  on  flew,  in  some  incredible  manner,  through 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land.  The  excitement 
grew  tense.  There  must  have  been  enormous  horse- 
back travel  in  those  days,  to  carry  the  news-budgets 

'Jefferson,  Notes  on  Virginia,  p.   158. 


260  George  Washington 

from  town  to  town  and  from  colony  to  colony,  until 
New  Hampshire  and  Georgia  (loyally  named  from 
the  Brunswick  line)  were  talking  about  the  same 
things  almost  simultaneously — the  insults  put  on 
Franklin  in  London,  the  scandal  of  the  Hutchinson 
letters,  the  ridicule  and  abuse  hurled  by  old  Sam 
Johnson  on  the  Americans  as  "  a  race  of  convicts — a 
pack  of  rascals,  Sir !  "  the  quartering  of  troops  every- 
where, and  the  blind  obstinacy  of  Parliament  in  in- 
sisting on  asserting  its  unconditional  supremacy 
over  everything  American.  Even  the  coolest  natures 
kindled  and  caught  heat  from  the  wide-spread  dis- 
cussions. We  find  Washington  presiding  over  pro- 
testing bodies  of  neighbours  and  friends  in  Fairfax 
County  (where  his  autograph  will  and  the  old  county 
record-books,  filled  with  references  to  him,  are  still 
to  be  seen),  and  at  last  see  the  patriot  en  route  for 
Williamsburg  as  a  delegate,  bearing  to  the  burgesses 
the  admirable  "  Fairfax  Resolves  "  on  the  situation, 
in  the  handwriting  of  George  Mason.  About  the 
middle  of  May  he  reached  Williamsburg,  and  kept 
up  courteous  relations  with  Lord  Dunmore  all  the 
time  that  his  very  soul  must  have  burned  with  in- 
dignation against  him.  It  is  almost  pathetic  to  read 
of  the  balls  and  dinner-parties  at  the  "  Palace,"  to 
which  Washington  and  the  more  influential  bur- 
gesses were  invited,  when  the  hearts  of  all  were 
unstrung,  and  gloom  reigned  supreme  over  the  little 
city. 

As  soon  as  the  news  of  the  Boston  Port  Bill 
reached  Williamsburg,  the  burgesses  met  in  solemn 


The  Struggle  Begins  261 

conclave  to  remonstrate,  and  appointed  June  1st  as 
a  day  of  fasting,  humiliation,  and  prayer  to  sup- 
plicate the  Almighty  to  avert  the  horrors  of  a  war. 

Lord  Dunmore  with  incisive  speech  dissolved  the 
burgesses. 

But  the  burgesses  were  not  thus  to  be  punished 
like  unruly  children :  they  re-assembled  immediately 
in  the  famous  Apollo  Room  of  the  Raleigh  Tavern, 
and  called  a  convention  to  assemble  August  ist  for 
the  purpose  of  further  action  on  the  parliamentary 
measures,  and  the  selection  of  delegates  to  a  pro- 
posed Continental  Congress  at  Philadelphia,  Sep- 
tember 5,  1774.  Massachusetts  almost  simultane- 
ously proposed  the  same  measure  and  chose  dele- 
gates. Virginia  chose  Washington,  Richard  Henry 
Lee  and  Patrick  Henry  (the  great  orators),  Richard 
Bland,  Pe)'ton  Randolph,  Edmund  Pendleton,  and 
Benjamin  Harrison  (ancestor  of  the  two  presidents). 

"  Went  to  church  and  fasted  all  day,"  is  the  single 
graphic  entry  in  Washington's  Diary,  June  i,  1774- 

The  other  colonies  and  provinces  now  went  to 
work  to  choose  their  most  distinguished  and  public- 
spirited  men  as  delegates  to  the  Congress,  and  soon 
the  highways  were  dotted  with  horsemen  or  old- 
fashioned  chariots,  bearing  the  patriots  to  the  banks 
of  the  Schuylkill.  On  August  3ist,  Washington, 
Patrick  Henry,  and  Edmund  Pendleton  set  out  from 
Mount  Vernon,  and  turned  their  horses'  heads  to- 
wards Philadelphia,  Four  days  later  they  arrived 
and  soon  the  rooms  of  Carpenters'  Hall  (where  they 
assembled)  echoed  with  the  passionate  and  majestic 


262  George  Washington 

words  and  written  resolutions,  which  aroused  the  in- 
tense sympathy  and  admiration  of  Lord  Chatham. 
Peyton  Randolph  of  Virginia  was  chosen  president, 
and  the  moulding  of  the  celebrated  bill  of  grievances 
and  remonstrances  to  the  Crown  was  left  largely  in 
the  hands  of  Richard  Henry  Lee  and  Patrick  Henry. 
Each  colony  had  sent  its  shrewdest  and  best  men. 
Illustrious  names  were  there  from  South  Carolina, 
Maryland,  Pennsylvania,  New  York,  and  the  smaller 
colonies  were  not  behind.  For  eloquence,  Rutledge 
of  South  Carolina  took  the  palm,  but  for  solid  in- 
formation and  efficiency,  Colonel  Washington  stood 
head  and  shoulders  above  every  one  else,  in  Henry's 
opinion.  Silas  Deane  and  John  Adams  were  de- 
lighted with  the  bearing  of  the  Southerners.  "  There 
are  some  fine  fellows  come  from  Virginia,"  said 
Joseph  Reed,  "  but  they  are  very  high.  We  under- 
stand that  they  are  the  capital  men  of  the  colony." 

"  It  is  related  that  the  Earl  of  Dartmouth  inquired 
of  an  American,  in  London,  of  how  many  members 
the  Congress  consisted  ?  the  reply  was,  '  Fifty-two.' 
— '  Why  that  is  the  number  of  cards  in  a  pack/  said 
his  lordship ;  '  how  many  knaves  are  there  ?  ' — '  Not 
one/  answered  the  American,  '  your  lordship  will 
please  to  recollect  that  knaves  are  court  cards.'  "  1 

For  fifty-one  days  the  Congress  wrestled  with  its 
mighty  problems,  now  of  life  and  death  to  all. 

"  For  seven  weeks  of  almost  continuous  session 
did  it  hammer  its  stiff  business  into  shape,  never 

1  Lossing,  Washington  and  the  American  Republic,  vol.  i, 
p.  441. 


The  Struggle  Begins  263 

wearying  of  deliberation  or  debate,  till  it  could  put 
forth  papers  to  the  world — an  address  to  the  King, 
memorials  to  the  people  of  Great  Britain  and  to  the 
people  of  British  America,  their  fellow-subjects,  and 
a  solemn  Declaration  of  Rights — which  should  mark 
it  no  revolutionary  body,  but  a  congress  of  just  and 
thoughtful  Englishmen,  in  love,  not  with  license  or 
rebellion,  but  with  right  and  wholesome  liberty.  Their 
only  act  of  aggression  was  the  formation  of  an 
'American  Association,'  pledged  against  trade  with 
Great  Britain  till  the  legislation  of  which  they  com- 
plained should  be  repealed.  Their  only  intimation  of 
intentions  for  the  future  was  a  resolution  to  meet 
again  the  next  spring,  should  their  prayers  not  mean- 
while be  heeded. 

"  Washington  turned  homeward  from  the  congress 
with  thoughts  and  purposes  every  way  deepened  and 
matured.  It  had  been  a  mere  seven  weeks'  confer- 
ence ;  no  one  had  deemed  the  congress  a  government, 
or  had  spoken  of  any  object  save  peace  and  accom- 
modation; but  no  one  could  foresee  the  issue  of  what 
had  been  done."  * 

This  Congress  indeed  was  nothing  more  than  a 
Solemn  League  and  Covenant  of  Committees  of 
Correspondence,  Committees  of  Safety,  delegations 
from  now  outlawed  provincial  assemblies,  Sons  of 
Liberty  working  on  the  desperate  task  of  the  birth 
of  a  new  nation.  Through  these  agencies,  infor- 
mation flew  from  town  to  town.  "  To  Arms !  " 
rang  like  a  battle-cry  all  over  America. 

The  months  succeeding  October,  1774,  to  March, 

1  Woodrow  Wilson,  George  Washington,  p.   164. 


264  George  Washington 

1775,  were  months  not  of  words  but  of  deeds:  men 
met,  assemblies  convened,  only  to  arm  themselves, 
to  drill,  to  elect  officers,  to  secure  ammunition,  to 
prepare  for  civil  war. 

The  vernal  equinox  of  March,  1775,  saw  the 
second  great  revolutionary  convention  of  Virginia 
meet  at  Richmond,  for  the  purpose  of  making  mili- 
tary preparations  of  defence.  It  was  at  this  con- 
vention that  Patrick  Henry,  who  dominated  it  with 
his  tongue  of  fire,  introduced  his  memorable  reso- 
lutions of  resistance,  and  ended  them  with  a  speech 
in  which  the  ever- famous  words  occur : 

"  It  is  in  vain,  sir,  to  extenuate  the  matter.  Gentle- 
men may  cry  peace,  peace,  but  there  is  no  peace.  The 
war  is  actually  begun.  The  next  gale  that  sweeps 
from  the  north  will  bring  to  our  ears  the  clash  of 
resounding  arms.  Our  brethren  are  already  in  the 
field.  Why  stand  we  here  idle?  What  is  it  that  gen- 
tlemen wish?  What  would  they  have?  Is  life  so 
dear,  or  peace  so  sweet,  as  to  be  purchased  at  the 
price  of  chains  and  slavery  ?  Forbid  it,  Almighty 
God!  I  know  not  what  course  others  may  take,  but 
as  for  me,  give  me  liberty,  or  give  me  death !  " l 

Jefferson,  a  member  of  the  body,  truly  pronounced 
Henry  "  the  leader  of  the  Revolution,"  "  far  in  ad- 
vance of  the  rest  of  us."  A  few  weeks  later,  on 
the  i  Qth  of  April,  a  clash  between  the  "  minute  men  " 
of  Massachusetts  and  General  Gage's  British  soldiers 
occurred  at  the  little  town  of  Lexington,  while  the 
regulars  were  on  their  way  to  Concord  (strange 

1  Tyler,  Patrick  Henry,  p.  128, 


CARPENTERS'   HALL,    PHILADELPHIA. 
Wherein  met  the  first  Continental  Congress,  1774. 


The  Struggle  Begins  265 

name  for  the  times!)  to  seize  the  military  stores 
there  accumulated,  and  soon  three  hundred  of  the 
poor  fellows  bit  the  dust  in  their  foolish  pride  of 
subjugation.  The  rest  retreated  hastily  to  Boston, 
and  Paul  Revere  began  another  of  his  celebrated 
rides  (in  ancient  Grecian  wise)  to  scatter  the  news 
far  South. 

Two  days  later,  "  the  rape  of  the  Gunpowder  "  by 
Lord  Dunmore  brought  affairs  in  Virginia  to  an 
acute  crisis.  He  landed  marines  in  the  night  at 
Williamsburg,  and  spirited  away  from  the  old 
"  Powder  Horn  "  magazine  all  the  powder  stowed 
there  for  the  defence  of  the  colony. 

This  excited  intense  indignation,  and  five  thou- 
sand men,  virtually  led  by  Patrick  Henry  (really 
captain  only  of  his  own  company),  rushed  toward 
Williamsburg  demanding  restitution  of  the  powder 
or  its  value  in  money. 

The  terrified  Earl  chose  the  latter  course,  and  the 
money  was  handed  over  to  Henry.  Lady  Dunmore 
and  her  daughters  fled  to  a  place  of  safety.  Twenty 
days  later  Philadelphia  saw  the  second  solemn  re- 
volutionary Congress  convene,  May  loth. 

The  Virginia  delegates  were  the  same  as  before. 
John  Hancock,  a  patriotic  citizen  and  wealthy 
"  grandee  "  from  Massachusetts,  a  friend  and  fa- 
vourite of  Samuel  Adams,  was  president  of  the  Con- 
gress. Its  master  stroke  was  the  election  of  Colonel 
Washington  Commander-in-chief  of  the  forces  of 
the  United  Colonies.  The  Virginian  had  first  been 
proposed  by  John  Adams,  but  no  formal  action  was 


266  George  Washington 

taken  until  he  was,  later,  nominated  to  the  position 
by  Thomas  Johnson  of  Maryland. 

"  To  MRS.   MARTHA  WASHINGTON 

"Philadelphia,   18  June,   1775. 
"  MY  DEAREST, 

"  I  am  now  set  down  to  write  to  you  on  a  subject, 
which  fills  me  with  inexpressible  concern,  and  this 
concern  is  greatly  aggravated  and  increased,  when  I 
reflect  upon  the  uneasiness  I  know  it  will  give  you. 
It  has  been  determined  in  Congress,  that  the  whole 
army  raised  for  the  defence  of  the  American  cause 
shall  be  put  under  my  care,  and  that  it  is  necessary 
for  me  to  proceed  immediately  to  Boston  to  take  upon 
me  the  command  of  it. 

"  You  may  believe  me,  my  dear  Patsy,  when  I 
assure  you,  in  the  most  solemn  manner,  that,  so  far 
from  seeking  this  appointment,  I  have  used  every 
endeavor  in  my  power  to  avoid  it,  not  only  from  my 
unwillingness  to  part  with  you  and  the  family,  but 
from  a  consciousness  of  its  being  a  trust  too  great 
for  my  capacity,  and  that  I  should  enjoy  more  real 
happiness  in  one  month  with  you  at  home,  than  I 
have  the  most  distant  prospect  of  finding  abroad,  if 
my  stay  were  to  be  seven  times  seven  years.  But  as 
it  has  been  a  kind  of  destiny,  that  has  thrown  me 
upon  this  service,  I  shall  hope  that  my  undertaking 
it  is  designed  to  answer  some  good  purpose.  You 
might,  and  I  suppose  did  perceive,  from  the  tenor  of 
my  letters,  that  I  was  apprehensive  I  could  not  avoid 
this  appointment,  as  I  did  not  pretend  to  intimate 
when  I  should  return.  That  was  the  case.  It  was 


The  Struggle  Begins  267 

utterly  out  of  my  power  to  refuse  this  appointment, 
without  exposing  my  character  to  such  censures,  as 
would  have  reflected  dishonor  upon  myself,  and  given 
pain  to  my  friends.  This,  I  am  sure,  could  not,  and 
ought  not,  to  be  pleasing  to  you,  and  must  have  less- 
ened me  considerably  in  my  own  esteem.  I  shall 
rely,  therefore,  confidently  on  that  Providence,  which 
has  heretofore  preserved  and  been  bountiful  to  me, 
not  doubting  but  that  I  shall  return  safe  to  you  in  the 
fall.  I  shall  feel  no  pain  from  the  toil  or  the  danger 
of  the  campaign ;  my  unhappiness  will  flow  from  the 
uneasiness  I  know  you  will  feel  from  being  left  alone. 
I  therefore  beg,  that  you  will  summon  your  whole 
fortitude,  .and  pass  your  time  as  agreeably  as  possible. 
Nothing  will  give  me  so  much  sincere  satisfaction  as 
to  hear  this,  and  to  hear  it  from  your  own  pen.  My 
earnest  and  ardent  desire  is,  that  you  would  pursue 
any  plan  that  is  most  likely  to  produce  content,  and  a 
tolerable  degree  of  tranquillity,  as  it  must  add  greatly 
to  my  uneasy  feelings  to  hear,  that  you  are  dissatis- 
fied or  complaining  at  what  I  really  could  not  avoid. 

"  As  life  is  always  uncertain,  and  common  pru- 
dence dictates  to  every  man  the  necessity  of  settling 
his  temporal  concerns,  while  it  is  in  his  power,  and 
while  the  mind  is  calm  and  undisturbed,  I  have,  since 
I  came  to  this  place  (for  I  had  not  time  to  do  it 
before  I  left  home)  got  Colonel  Pendleton  to  draft  a 
will  for  me,  by  the  directions  I  gave  him,  which  will 
I  now  enclose.  The  provision  made  for  you  in  case 
of  my  death  will,  I  hope,  be  agreeable. 

"  I  shall  add  nothing  more,  as  I  have  several  let- 
ters to  write,  but  to  desire  that  you  will  remember 
me  to  your  friends,  and  to  assure  you  that  I  am,  with 


268  George  Washington 

the  most  unfeigned  regard,  my  dear  Patsy,  your  af- 
fectionate, etc."  x 

The  modesty  of  this  letter  is  only  paralleled  by 
that  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  of  almost  the  same 
date,  though  forty  years  later,  giving  the  tidings  of 
the  battle  of  Waterloo. 

The  two  dates  mark  eras  in  the  history  of  modern 
times. 

The  fires  of  rebellion  were  now  burning  brightly 
all  along  the  coast  line.  At  Boston,  the  centre  of 
the  turbulence,  sixteen  thousand  provincials  had 
assembled  from  all  sides,  and  threatened  the  ten 
thousand  regulars  gathered  there  to  protect  British 
interests.  The  inactivity  of  these  soldiers  was  nobly 
vindicated  by  Lord  Chatham  that  same  year  in  the 
words  of  Lord  Brougham : 

"  In  1775,  he  made  a  most  brilliant  speech  on  the 
war.  Speaking  of  General  Gage's  inactivity,  he  said 
he  could  not  be  blamed ;  it  was  inevitable.  '  But  what 
a  miserable  condition,'  he  exclaimed,  *  is  ours,  where 
disgrace  is  prudence,  and  where  it  is  necessary  to  be 
contemptible!  You  must  repeal  these  acts,'  (he  said, 
alluding  to  the  Boston  Port  and  Massachusetts  Bay 
Bills,)  '  and  you  WILL  repeal  them.  I  pledged  myself 
for  it,  that  you  will  repeal  them.  I  stake  my  reputa- 
tion on  it.  I  will  consent  to  be  taken  for  an  idiot  if 
they  are  not  finally  repealed.'  Every  one  knows 
how  true  this  prophesy  proved.  The  concluding  sen- 
tence of  the  speech  has  been  often  cited :  '  If  the 
ministers  persevere  in  misleading  the  King,  I  will 

1Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  ii,  p.  483. 


The  Struggle  Begins  269 

not  say  that  they  can  alienate  the  affections  of  his 
subjects  from  his  crown;  but  I  will  affirm  that  they 
will  make  the  crown  not  worth  his  wearing.  I  will 
not  say  that  the  King  is  betrayed;  but  I  will  pro- 
nounce that  the  Kingdom  is  undone.' 

"  Again,  in  1777,  after  describing  the  cause  of  the 
war  and  'the  traffic  and  barter  driven  with  every 
little  pitiful  German  Prince  that  sells  his  subjects  to 
the  shambles  of  a  foreign  country,'  he  adds :  '  The 
mercenary  aid  on  which  you  rely  irritates  to  an  in- 
curable resentment  the  minds  of  your  enemies,  whom 
you  overrun  with  the  sordid  sons  of  rapine  and  of 
plunder,  devoting  them  and  their  possessions  to  the 
rapacity  of  hireling  cruelty!  If  I  were  an  American 
as  I  am  an  Englishman,  while  a  foreign  troop  was 
landed  in  my  country,  I  never  would  lay  down  my 
arms,  never !  never !  never ! ' 

Undoubtedly,  this  kind  of  inactivity  and  hesitancy 
proved  in  the  end  fatal  to  the  British  cause:  they 
never  could  persuade  themselves  that  the  Americans 
would  persevere  in  so  hopeless-looking  a  case;  they 
always  believed  they  would  go  down  before  the  in- 
vincible valour  of  the  regulars,  and  sue  for  peace  and 
pardon  on  short  notice. 

In  this  they  were  wofully  mistaken.  Months  be- 
fore, Patrick  Henry  (soon  to  be  appointed  com- 
mander of  all  the  Virginia  forces  and,  a  little  later, 
chosen  first  republican  Governor  of  the  State)  had 
lifted  up  a  warning  voice  and  proclaimed  the  impos- 
sibility of  success  for  the  English.  The  assemblages 
of  armed  men  everywhere  gathering  were  not  mere 
mobs,  undisciplined,  lawless,  and  independent  as 


270  George  Washington 

they  might  seem.  Thousands  of  the  231,000  who 
served  in  the  Revolution  were  trained  Indian  fight- 
ers, frontiersmen,  hunters,  trappers,  expert  with  gun 
and  hatchet,  resourceful,  hardened  to  every  kind  of 
toil,  a  yeomanry  such  as  perhaps  the  world  had  not 
up  to  that  date  seen.  As  marksmen  many  of  the 
67,000  men  furnished  by  the  gallant  little  colony  of 
Massachusetts  to  the  Revolutionary  forces  were  fa- 
mous. The  following  anecdote  throws  light  on  the 
subject : 

"Among  the  incidents  of  the  British  possession  of 
the  town,  Andrews  relates  two,  which  indicate  that 
the  dry  humor  and  dialect  of  the  Yankee  are  not  of 
recent  discovery. 

"  It's  common  for  the  soldiers  to  fire  at  a  target 
fixed  in  the  stream  at  the  bottom  of  the  Common. 
A  countryman  stood  by  a  few  days  ago,  and  laughed 
very  heartily  at  a  whole  regiment's  firing,  and  not 
being  able  to  hit  it.  The  officer  observed  him,  and 
asked  why  he  laughed.  '  Perhaps  you'll  be  affronted 
if  I  tell  you,'  replied  the  countryman.  No,  he  would 
not,  he  said.  '  Why  then,'  says  he,  '  I  laugh  to  see 
how  awkward  they  fire,  why,  I'll  be  bound  I  hit  it  ten 
times  running.'  — '  Ah !  will  you  ?  '  replied  the  officer. 
'  Come  try. — Soldiers,  go  and  bring  five  of  the  best 
guns,  and  load  'em  for  this  honest  man.' — '  Why,  you 
need  not  bring  so  many :  let  me  have  any  one  that 
comes  to  hand,'  replied  the  other.  But  I  chuse  to 
load  myself.'  He  accordingly  loaded,  and  asked  the 
officer  where  he  should  fire.  He  replied,  '  To  the 
right,'  when  he  pulled  tricker,  and  drove  the  ball  as 
near  the  right  as  possible.  The  officer  was  amazed, 


The  Struggle  Begins  271 

and  said  he  could  not  do  it  again,  as  that  was  only 
by  chance.  He  loaded  again.  '  Where  shall  I  fire  ? ' 
— '  To  the  left'  when  he  performed  as  well  as  before. 
'  Come,  once  more ! '  says  the  officer.  He  prepared 
the  third  time.  '  Where  shall  I  fire  naowf ' — '  In  the 
centre.'  He  took  aim,  and  the  ball  went  as  exact  in 
the  middle  as  possible.  The  officers  as  well  as  sol- 
diers stared,  and  thought  the  devil  was  in  the  man. 
'  Why,'  says  the  countryman,  '  I'll  tell  you  naow.  I 
have  got  a  boy  at  home  that  will  toss  up  an  apple, 
and  shoot  out  all  the  seeds  as  it's  coming  down.'  "  1 

It  was  a  "  mob  "  of  this  sort  that  greeted  Wash- 
ington when  he  arrived  at  Boston,  shortly  after  the 
battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  June,  1775  :  men  who  had  an 
intelligent  comprehension  of  what  they  fought  for, 
and  why  they  fought :  volunteers  who,  by  their  own 
volition,  had  enlisted  for  longer  or  shorter  terms, 
to  defend  sacred  rights  of  home  and  fireside,  and 
great  constitutional  principles  on  which  their  very 
existence  depended. 

In  the  battle  on  and  around  Bunker  Hill,  a 
thousand  splendid  redcoats  and  many  a  gallant  offi- 
cer gave  bloody  tribute  to  the  marksmanship  and 
valour  and  power  to  stand  of  the  "  backwoodsmen." 
The  sharp  rattle  of  musketry  from  the  independents 
proved,  in  this  first  conflict,  almost  a  match  for  the 
platoon  firing  and  massed  advance  of  historic  regi- 
ments, whose  laurels  had  been  gained  on  European 
battle-fields.  It  was  a  trial  of  strength  which  boded 

1  H.  E.  Scudder,  Men  and  Manners  in  America  One  Hun- 
dred Years  Ago,  p.  21. 


272  George  Washington 

well  for  the  Americans.  The  flying  engagement  of 
Lexington,  and  the  determined  though  undisciplined 
resistance  of  Bunker  Hill,  were  to  be  types  of  the 
whole  six  years  and  a  half  of  war.  Until  Baron 
von  Steuben  came  to  Washington  at  Valley  Forge,  in 
1778,  the  Americans  knew  little — one  might  better 
say,  absolutely  nothing — of  regular  discipline.  The 
camp-fire,  the  Indian  trail,  the  lonely  bivouac  in  the 
wood,  the  log-cabin  pierced  with  holes  for  flint-locks, 
the  solitary  vigil  against  war-whoop  and  scalping- 
knife,  the  drift  down  the  winding  river,  the  plunge 
into  the  untrodden  wilderness :  these  had  been  their 
"  Jomini,"  their  manuals  of  drill  and  exercise,  their 
text-books  in  arms. 

News  of  the  Bunker  Hill  engagement  had  indeed 
reached  Washington  as  he  journeyed  on  horseback 
to  Cambridge,  to  assume  command  of  the  army,  and 
the  way  seemed  wonderfully — to  some  Providential- 
ly— cleared  for  the  new  commander  to  enter  upon 
his  novel  responsibilities,  before  the  severe  season 
set  in.  For  though  in  this  engagement  the  Ameri- 
cans suffered  a  check,  their  spirit  came  out  brilliant- 
ly and  showed  a  mettle  that  augured  ill  to  their  foes 
in  the  future.  The  invincible  spirit  of  General  Put- 
nam, Colonels  Prescott,  Stark,  Gardner,  Gridley,  Dr. 
Warren,  and  the  other  American  commanders,  the 
valour  of  the  ill-fed  and  disorganised  militiamen  be- 
hind their  amateur  redoubts  on  Breed's  and  Bunker 
Hills,  opposite  Boston,  the  stout  resistance  offered 
by  fifteen  hundred  men  to  the  whole  British  army 
and  fleet  under  General  Howe  and  Sir  Henry  Clin- 


The  Struggle  Begins  273 

ton,  then  in  Boston,  instantly  predicted  to  all 
thoughtful  men  the  stubborn  and  sanguinary  nature 
of  the  conflict  just  begun. 

The  i /th  of  June,  1775,  was  thus  a  memorable 
date  in  American  history,  afterwards  commemorated 
by  the  obelisk  raised  on  Bunker  Hill,  the  corner- 
stone of  which  was  laid  by  LaFayette. 

The  slaughter  of  nearly  1500  men  of  the  same 
flesh  and  blood — 450  on  the  American,  1054  on  the 
British  side, — the  death  of  the  noble  Warren  and 
Major  Pitcairn,  the  wounding  of  Lord  Howe  him- 
self, the  tenacity  and  fury  shown  on  both  sides,  were 
omens  terrible  indeed  to  the  lovers  of  peace,  and  sent 
thrills  of  pride  and  horror  over  the  whole  world  of 
that  day. 

When  Washington  reached  Cambridge,  July  3, 
1775,  Boston  was  already  in  a  state  of  siege,  and 
the  new  Commander-in-chief  had  his  hands  full. 

Settling  first  in  the  house  of  the  president  of 
Harvard  College,  Washington  transferred  his  head- 
quarters, later,  to  Craigie  House,  afterwards  well- 
known  as  the  Cambridge  residence  of  the  poet,  Long- 
fellow. From  now  on,  begins  ah  absolutely  busy 
and  preoccupied  life  for  Washington,  such  as  he  had 
never  lived  before.  His  magnanimous  conduct  in 
declining  to  receive  a  salary  as  General,  in  return 
for  his  services,  had  excited  universal  applause:  all 
he  claimed  was  a  bare  reimbursement  for  his  private 
expenses,  which  from  this  time  appear  scrupulously 
recorded  in  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence  in  his  day- 
books. The  letters  and  newspapers  of  this  time  re- 


274  George  Washington 

cord  his  progress  from  town  to  town,  from  Phila- 
delphia to  New  York,  through  Connecticut  and 
Rhode  Island  to  Cambridge.  Of  his  personal  ap- 
pearance at  the  time,  so  distinguished  by  gravity, 
dignity,  and  intelligence,  we  have  the  following  tes- 
timony : 

"  July  2nd,  1775. — I  have  been  much  gratified  this 
day  with  a  view  of  General  Washington.  His  Excel- 
lency was  on  horseback  in  company  with  several  mil- 
itary gentlemen.  It  was  not  difficult  to  distinguish 
him  from  all  others ;  his  personal  appearance  is  truly 
noble  and  majestic;  being  tall  and  well  proportioned. 
His  dress  is  a  blue  coat  with  buff-colored  facings,  a 
rich  epaulette  on  each  shoulder,  buff  underdress,  and 
an  elegant  small  sword ;  a  black  cockade  in  his  hat."  1 

General  Greene  in  writing  to  Samuel  Ward,  July 
1 4th,  says: 

"  His  Excellency,  General  Washington,  has  arrived 
amongst  us,  universally  admired.  Joy  was  visible  in 
every  countenance,  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  spirit  of 
conquest  breathed  through  the  whole  army.  I  hope 
we  shall  be  taught,  to  copy  his  example,  and  to  pre- 
fer the  love  of  liberty,  in  this  time  of  public  danger 
to  all  the  soft  pleasures  of  domestic  life,  and  support 
ourselves  with  manly  fortitude  amidst  all  the  dangers 
and  hardships  that  attend  a  state  of  war.  And  I 
doubt  not,  under  the  General's  wise  direction,  we 
shall  establish  such  excellent  order  and  strictness  of 
discipline  as  to  invite  victory  to  attend  him  wherever 
he  goes." 

1  Baker,  Itinerary  of  General  Washington,  1775-1783,  p.  12. 


The  Struggle  Begins  275 

He  at  once  established  that  remarkable  system  of 
dispatches  to  Congress — long,  detailed,  explicit — 
from  which  he  never  swerved  during  the  entire  war, 
and  which  kept  this  body  circumstantially  informed 
of  every  minutest  need,  hope,  and  aspiration.  They 
form  a  kind  of  Caesar's  Commentaries  on  the  War 
of  the  Revolution. 

The  first  and  ever-increasing  need  was  ammu- 
nition :  only  nine  rounds  per  man  remained  after  the 
battle  of  Bunker  Hill.  The  next  was  a  military 
chest — no  money  was  forthcoming;  a  commissary- 
general  ;  quartermaster-general ;  ten  thousand  hunt- 
ing-shirts for  the  ill-clad  troops;  hospital-stores  for 
the  sick ;  a  military  staff :  in  short,  a  thousand  things 
never  dreamt  of  by  the  citizen  Congress,  unfamiliar 
with  the  organisation  of  armies.  Letters  proffering 
help  poured  in  from  General  Schuyler,  Governor 
Trumbull  of  Connecticut,  Generals  Putnam  and 
Gates,  Richard  Henry  Lee  and  other  members  of 
Congress,  all  proclaiming  Washington's  appoint- 
ment Providential  and  destined  to  save  the  empire. 

For  even  yet — July,  1775 — the  Congress  at  Phila- 
delphia was,  through  the  pen  of  John  Dickinson, 
breathing  timid  hopes  of  reconciliation  with  the 
mother-country.  It  was  the  year  of  Burke's  magnif- 
icent speech  on  "  Conciliation  with  the  Colonies," 
now  one  of  the  classics  of  British  oratory.  It  is  on 
abundant  record  that  Franklin,  Jefferson,  and  Wash- 
ington never  conceived  a  final  separation  possible 
until,  a  year  later,  the  immortal  Declaration  had 
shaped  itself  distinctly — after  a  thousand  remon- 


276  George  Washington 

strances,  petitions,  expostulations  in  vain — in  the 
minds  of  the  Committee  of  Five  who  drafted  it. 
The  invading  troops  were  delicately  called  "  minis- 
terial," not  royal  troops,  so  that  the  whole  respon- 
sibility for  the  war  might  be  thrown  upon  Parlia- 
ment and  the  Ministry,  not  upon  the  King. 

The  Commander-in-chief,  on  his  white  Arabian 
charger,  soon  became  a  well-known  figure  as  he 
journeyed  to  and  fro  through  the  camps,  on  his  tire- 
less mission  of  inspection,  reconnaissance,  redoubt- 
building,  and  military  engineering,  for  the  benefit 
of  all  and  for  the  strengthening  of  his  position.  He 
had  judiciously  divided  his  army  into  three  corps, 
the  left  commanded  by  Charles  Lee  (afterwards 
known  as  "the  soldier  of  fortune"),  the  centre  at 
Cambridge  under  General  Putnam,  and  the  right  at 
Roxbury  under  General  Ward. 

The  siege  of  Boston,  as  it  was  soon  called,  was 
now  actively  begun.  Generals  Howe,  Clinton,  Gage, 
and  Burgoyne  (son-in-law  of  the  Earl  of  Derby) 
commanded  the  British  forces. 

Monster  petitions  were  meanwhile  being  handed 
around  by  John  Wilkes  (Lord  Mayor  of  London) 
and  eleven  hundred  of  the  wealthiest  citizens  of  the 
metropolis,  imploring  the  King  to  stop  in  his  ruin- 
ous policy  to  his  loyal  subjects;  even  Congress 
thanked  their  British  fellow-citizens  for  their  earn- 
est endeavours  to  avert  war ;  but  all  was  in  vain. 

The  middle  and  end  of  the  year  were  marked  % 
brilliant  successes  for  the  Americans  under  Benedict 
Arnold,  Ethan  Allen,  General  Schuyler,  and  the  he- 


MAJOR-GENERAL  CHARLES  LEE. 
From  an  English  engraving  published  in  1776. 


The  Struggle  Begins  277 

roic  Montgomery,  in  the  Canadian  campaign  against 
Sir  Guy  Carleton  on  Lake  Champlain,  Montreal, 
and  Quebec.  Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point, 
Chambly,  and  St.  John,  fell,  loaded  with  stores 
of  ammunition,  cannon,  and  provisions,  into  the 
hands  of  the  patriots  and  gave  infinite  encourage- 
ment to  the  cause.  In  the  course  of  the  campaign, 
appeared  numerous  figures  afterwards  celebrated 
in  the  annals  of  the  war:  Major  Andre,  Benedict 
Arnold,  Aaron  Burr  (the  wayward  grandson  of 
Jonathan  Edwards,  later  Vice-President  of  the 
United  States),  and  William  Pitt,  secretary  to  Sir 
Guy  Carleton,  son  of  the  great  Earl,  afterwards 
prime  minister  of  Great  Britain.  Washington  and 
Gage,  the  rival  commanders  at  Boston,  had  been  in- 
timately associated  together  with  Braddock  in  his 
tragic  expedition  against  Fort  Du  Quesne. 

The  year,  however,  was  to  end  in  disaster,  for 
December  3ist  saw  the  crushing  defeat  and  death 
of  Montgomery  at  Quebec,  Arnold  with  a  bullet 
through  his  leg,  Captain  Daniel  Morgan  and  his 
heroic  riflemen  surrounded  and  captured,  and  the 
high  hopes  of  the  Americans  annihilated. 

The  glory  of  the  whole  campaign  seemed  dark- 
ened by  this  disaster ;  yet  countervailing  distinctions 
awaited  the  Americans.  On  January  i,  1776,  the 
first  flag  of  the  Continental  Army  was  unfurled  at 
Cambridge,  for  the  first  time.  It  consisted  of  thir- 
teen stripes  of  alternate  red  and  white,  with  a 
"  union  Jack  "  of  the  crosses  of  St.  George  and  St. 
Andrew  in  the  upper  corner,  later  to  be  substituted  by 


278  George  Washington 

a  blue  field  sprinkled  with  white  stars,  a  new  star 
for  every  new  State.  Two  months  and  a  half  later, 
on  the  ever-memorable  2Oth  of  March,  1776,  the 
American  army  entered  Boston,  after  the  hurried 
retreat  of  Lord  Howe  with  nine  thousand  regulars 
and  nine  hundred  loyalists.  The  patriot  army  had 
seized  and  fortified  Dorchester  Heights,  which  com- 
pletely commanded  the  British  positions  and  ren- 
dered their  immediate  evacuation  imperative.  The 
town  was  humanely  allowed  to  stand  as  it  was 
without  being  burned,  a  policy  imitated  by  Wash- 
ington a  few  months  later  when  he  evacuated  New 
York. 

At  this  very  time,  the  obnoxious  manifesto  of 
Lord  North  against  the  rebellion  in  the  name  of 
the  King  was  under  discussion  in  Parliament,  and 
the  hiring  of  17,50x3  "  Hessians  "  at  thirty-six  dol- 
lars a  head  for  service  in  America  roused  the  ridicule 
and  indignation  of  Frederick  the  Great  and  all 
Europe. 

A  large  number  of  these  stupid  mercenaries,  on 
their  arrival  in  America,  became  enamoured  of  their 
new  surroundings,  deserted  or  were  "  captured  "  or 
married,  and  settled  down  in  comfortable  homes  far 
from  the  petty  German  tyrants  who  had  sold  them 
to  infamy  and  death  in  a  foreign  land. 

Great  was  the  joy  over  the  fall  of  Boston;  the 
thanks  of  Congress  and  of  many  provincial  assem- 
blies poured  in  upon  Washington  and  his  troops. 
Harvard  conferred  the  degree  of  LL.  D.  on  the 
chief,  and  admiration  rose  almost  to  adoration. 


The  Struggle  Begins  279 

Leaving  five  regiments  under  General  Ward  to 
garrison  Boston,  Washington  swiftly  turned  to  New 
York,  selected  and  fortified  commanding  spots  in 
its  neighbourhood,  and  rode  to  Philadelphia  to  re- 
ceive the  orders  and  felicitations  of  Congress.  At 
first  with  only  nine  or  ten  thousand  men  he  hastened 
to  occupy  and  put  up  defensive  works  on  Long 
Island,  at  Harlem  Heights,  King's  Bridge,  and  Fort 
Washington.  The  vast  strategic  importance  of  New 
York  to  both  sides  was  incalculable.  Opening  like 
great  jaws  into  the  heart  of  the  land,  the  harbour 
was  spacious  enough  to  float  the  navies  of  the  world, 
and  draw  up  into  the  interior  the  frigates  and  flo- 
tillas of  a  sea  power  that  was  regarded  as  invincible. 
Whoever  first  occupied  this  impregnable  position 
might  well  seem  to  be  master  of  the  continent. 

On  the  3rd  of  July,  the  Bay  suddenly  became 
white  with  over  a  hundred  sail,  and  Lord  Howe 
proceeded  to  land  on  Staten  Island  some  of  the 
twenty-five  regiments  deemed  sufficient  by  the  min- 
istry for  the  conquest  of  the  New  World. 

The  day  after,  July  4th,  1776,  proclaimed  to  the 
civilised  world  that  the  United  States  had  come  into 
existence,  that  all  allegiance  to  Great  Britain  had 
been  absolutely  thrown  off,  and  that  a  free  ano 
sovereign  people  now  ruled  over  the  Western  Hem- 
isphere. Written  at  the  most  solemn  moment  of  the 
Revolution,  when  all  hope  of  reconciliation  had  ab- 
solutely died  out,  the  sentences  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  rang  with  an  eloquence  which 
startled  all  mankind  and  asserted  truths  so  univer- 


280  George  Washington 

sally  held  to  be  beyond  question,  that  it  became  at 
once  the  text-book  of  the  newer  constitutions  in  all 
modern  constitutional  movements. 

The  writer  of  this  celebrated  document  was 
Thomas  Jefferson,  afterwards  Governor  of  Virginia, 
Secretary  of  State,  and  third  President  of  the 
United  States.  His  associates  on  the  committee 
were  John  Adams  (second  President  of  the  United 
States),  Benjamin  Franklin,  Roger  Sherman,  and 
Robert  Livingston.  Adams  and  Jefferson  both 
lived  until  the  4th  of  July,  1826,  when,  singularly 
enough,  both  expired  on  the  same  day  within  a  few 
hours  of  each  other. 

The  opening  paragraphs  are  as  follows : 

"A  Declaration  By  The  Representatives  Of  The 
United  States  Of  America,  In  General  Congress 
Assembled. 

"  When,  in  the  course  of  human  events,  it  becomes 
necessary  for  one  people  to  dissolve  the  political  bands 
which  have  connected  them  with  another,  and  to  ac- 
sume  among  the  powers  of  the  earth  the  separate  and 
equal  station  to  which  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  na- 
ture's God  entitle  them,  a  decent  respect  for  the  opin- 
ions of  mankind  requires  that  they  should  declare  the 
causes  which  impel  them  to  the  separation. 

"  We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident :  that  all 
men  are  created  equal;  that  they  are  endowed  by 
their  Creator  with  certain  unalienable  rights ;  that 
among  these  are  life,  liberty,  and 'the  pursuit  of  hap- 
piness ;  that,  to  secure  these  rights,  governments  are 
instituted  among  men,  deriving  their  just  powers 
from  the  consent  of  the  governed ;  that  whenever  any 


MAJOR-GENERAL  NATHANAEL  GREENE. 
From  the  painting  by  Col.  John  Trumbull. 


The  Struggle  Begins  281 

form  of  government  becomes  destructive  of  these  ends 
it  is  the  right  of  the  people  to  alter  or  to  abolish  it, 
and  to  institute  a  new  government,  laying  its  founda- 
tion on  such  principles,  and  organizing  its  powers  in 
such  form,  as  to  them  shall  seem  most  likely  to  effect 
their  safety  and  happiness.  Prudence,  indeed,  will 
dictate  that  governments  long  established  should  not 
be  changed  for  light  and  transient  causes ;  and  accord- 
ingly all  experience  hath  shown  that  mankind  are 
more  disposed  to  suffer,  while  evils  are  sufferable, 
than  to  right  themselves  by  abolishing  the  forms  to 
which  they  are  accustomed.  But  when  a  long  train 
of  abuses  and  usurpations,  pursuing  invariably  the 
same  object,  evinces  a  design  to  reduce  them  under 
absolute  despotism,  it  is  their  right,  it  is  their  duty, 
to  throw  off  such  government,  and  to  provide  new 
guards  for  their  future  security.  Such  has  been  the 
patient  sufferance  of  these  colonies;  and  such  is  now 
the  necessity  which  constrains  them  to  alter  their 
former  system  of  government.  The  history  of  the 
present  King  of  Great  Britain  is  a  history  of  repeated 
injuries  and  usurpations,  all  having  in  direct  object 
the  establishment  of  an  absolute  tyranny  over  these 
states.  To  prove  this,  let  facts  be  submitted  to  a 
candid  world,  etc.,  etc.,  etc.  .  .  . 

"  We,  therefore,  the  representatives  of  the  United 
States  of  America  in  General  Congress  assembled, 
appealing  to  the  Supreme  Judge  of  the  world  for  the 
rectitude  of  our  intentions,  do,  in  the  name  and  by 
the  authority  of  the  good  people  of  these  colonies, 
solemnly  publish  and  declare  that  these  United  Col- 
onies are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  free  and  inde- 
pendent states;  that  they  are  absolved  from  all  alle- 


282  George  Washington 

giance  to  the  British  crown,  and  that  all  political  con- 
nection between  them  and  the  state  of  Great  Britain 
is,  and  ought  to  be,  totally  dissolved ;  and  that,  as  free 
and  independent  states,  they  have  full  power  to  levy 
war,  conclude  peace,  contract  alliances,  establish  com- 
merce, and  to  do  all  other  acts  and  things  which  inde- 
pendent states  may  of  right  do. 

"And  for  the  support  of  this  declaration,  with  a 
firm  reliance  on  the  protection  of  Divine  Providence, 
we  mutually  pledge  to  each  other  our  lives,  our  for- 
tunes, and  our  sacred  honor." 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE   HEART  OF  THE  REVOLUTION 

NOT  many  days  elapsed  before  Washington  had 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  publicly 
read,  from  the  balcony  of  the  old  City  Hall  in  Wall 
Street,  to  the  assembled  commands.  All  doubt  and 
hesitation  were  now,  once  and  for  ever,  cast  away : 
the  United  Colonies  were  in  full  revolution :  men 
cast  in  their  lot  either  for  or  against  it;  and  neu- 
trality was  no  longer  possible.  The  large  and  im- 
portant body  of  loyalists  were  in  acute  distress. 
Business  interests,  ties  of  blood  and  of  association 
bound  them  strongly  to  England;  yet  the  patriot 
armies  were  full  of  their  kinspeople,  and,  whichever 
way  they  turned,  they  were  searched  by  the  "  fires 
of  civil  discord,"  levied  upon  by  both  sides,  insulted 
and  detested  by  both  Monarchists  and  Republicans, 
and  in  a  fair  way  to  be  ground  to  pieces  between  the 
two.  Large  numbers  of  Quakers,  Canadians, 
Anglicised  French,  Dutch,  and  even  numbers  of 
influential  colonial  families  of  Virginia,  Maryland, 
North  and  South  Carolina,  sided  with  the  British, 
and  entangled  Washington  and  the  Congress  in 
infinite  perplexities  and  difficulties.  Plots  to  kid- 
nap or  murder  Washington  began  to  hatch  during 
the  next  few  months;  cabals  and  intrigues  arose,  in 

283 


284  George  Washington 

and  out  of  the  army ;  and  the  launching  of  the  Revo- 
lution was  beset  with  dangers. 

Just  one  year  had  passed  away,  since  Washington 
had  mounted  his  horse  and  ridden  proudly  away  to 
Cambridge  to  assume  the  position  of  Commander-in- 
chief.  The  siege  and  fall  of  Boston  had  signalised 
the  beginning  of  the  struggle  as  a  brilliant  success. 
Without  training  in  the  regular  army,  destitute  of 
technical  knowledge  as  a  soldier,  educated  indeed  in 
the  woods  purely  as  an  Indian  fighter,  or  against 
wandering  bodies  of  nomad  French  and  Canadians, 
Washington  began  now,  in  the  face  of  endless  dif- 
ficulties, to  develop  that  genius  for  command  and 
for  the  utilisation  of  scant  resources,  which  excited 
the  admiration  of  Frederick  the  Great,  and,  later,  of 
Cornwallis  and  Napoleon.  "  The  finger  of  God  was 
in  it,"  remarked  Bonaparte,  and  when,  five  years 
later,  the  English  commander  handed  over  his  sword 
at  Yorktown,  he  could  not  repress  his  admiration  for 
the  manner  in  which  his  captor  had  conducted  the 
Jersey  campaign,  now  about  to  open.  Strategic- 
ally weak  as  was  the  American's  position  at  any 
given  point  on  the  enormously  entended  line — Bos- 
ton, New  York,  Philadelphia,  Norfolk,  Cape  Fear, 
Charleston — yet  so  full  of  resource  was  Washington, 
assisted  by  Generals  Gates  and  Mifflin  and  the  Con- 
gressional Board  of  War,  that  the  invaders  were 
successively  baffled,  checked,  circumvented,  sur- 
rounded at  every  point,  and  confessed  themselves 
absolutely  worn  to  pieces  by  the  "  Fabian  policy  " 
of  the  Americans.  No  other  policy  was  practicable 


The  Heart  of  the  Revolution   285 

at  a  time  when  the  Articles  of  Confederation  were 
hardly  signed,  centralised  government  did  not  exist, 
Congress,  itself,  was  full  of  lukewarm  adherents  of 
the  Declaration,  and  jealousies,  deep-seated  and 
alarming,  between  different  sections  of  the  country 
began  to  manifest  themselves  in  and  out  of  Phila- 
delphia, the  temporary  continental  capital. 

The  alertness,  resourcefulness,  vigilance,  and  in- 
domitable spirit  of  Washington  and  his  noble  corps 
of  frontier-bred  generals — Putnam,  Arnold,  An- 
drew Lewis,  Montgomery,  Schuyler,  Sullivan, 
Greene,  Moultrie,  Marion,  and  Ward — rose  equal  to 
the  occasion,  and  buoyed  up  the  faltering  steps  of 
the  patriots  in  a  fashion  which  ultimately  rendered 
them  as  steadfast  as  the  rock. 

"  In  Washington,"  says  John  Fiske,  "  were  combined 
all  the  highest  qualities  of  a  general — dogged  tenacity 
of  purpose,  endless  fertility  in  resource,  sleepless  vig- 
ilance, and  unfailing  courage.  No  enemy  ever  caught 
him  unawares  and  he  never  let  slip  an  opportunity  for 
striking  back.  He  had  a  rare  geographical  instinct, 
always  knew  where  the  strongest  position  was  and 
how  to  reach  it.  He  was  a  master  of  the  art  of  con- 
cealing his  own  plan  and  detecting  his  adversary's. 
He  knew  better  than  to  hazard  everything  on  the 
result  of  a  single  contest;  because  of  the  enemy's  su- 
perior force  he  was  so  often  obliged  to  refuse  battle 
that  some  of  his  impatient  critics  called  him  slow ;  but 
no  general  was  ever  quicker  in  dealing  heavy  blows 
when  the  proper  moment  arrived.  He  was  neither 
unduly  elated  by  victory  nor  discouraged  by  defeat. 
When  all  others  lost  heart,  he  was  bravest ;  and  at  the 


286  George  Washington 

very  moment  when  ruin  seemed  to  stare  him  in  the 
face,  he  was  craftily  preparing  disaster  and  confusion 
for  the  enemy.  To  the  highest  qualities  of  a  military 
commander  there  were  united  in  Washington  those  of 
a  political  leader.  From  early  youth  he  possessed  the 
art  of  winning  men's  confidence.  He  was  simple 
without  awkwardness,  honest  without  bluntness,  and 
endowed  with  rare  discretion  and  tact.  His  temper 
was  fiery  and  on  occasions  he  could  use  pretty  strong 
language,  but  anger  or  disappointment  was  never  al- 
lowed to  disturb  the  justice  and  kindness  of  his  judg- 
ment. Men  felt  themselves  safe  in  putting  entire 
trust  in  his  head  and  his  heart,  and  they  were  never 
deceived.  Thus  he  soon  obtained  such  a  hold  upon 
the  people  as  few  statesmen  ever  possessed.  It  was 
this  grand  character  that  with  his  clear  intelligence 
and  unflagging  industry  enabled  him  to  lead  the  na- 
tion triumphantly  though  the  perils  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary War.  He  had  almost  every  imaginable  hard- 
ship to  contend  with — envious  rivals,  treachery  and 
mutiny  in  the  camp,  interference  on  the  part  of  Con- 
gress, jealousies  between  the  states,  want  of  men 
and  money ;  yet  all  these  difficulties  he  vanquished. 
Whether  victorious  or  defeated  in  the  field,  he  baf- 
fled the  enemy  in  the  first  year's  great  campaign,  and 
in  the  second  year's ;  and  then  for  four  years  more 
upheld  the  cause,  until  heart  -  sickening  delay  was 
ended  in  glorious  triumph.  It  is  very  doubtful  if 
without  Washington  the  struggle  for  independence 
would  have  succeeded.  Other  men  were  important 
— he  was  indispensable." 

Add  to  this  fine  tribute  the  words  of  the  eminent 
historian,  John  Richard  Green : 


The  Heart  of  the  Revolution   287 

"  No  nobler  figure,  ever  stood  in  the  fore  front  of 
a  nation's  life.  Washington  was  grave  and  courteous 
in  address;  his  manners  were  simple  and  unpretend- 
ing; his  silence  and  the  serene  calmness  of  his  temper 
spoke  of  a  perfect  self-mastery.  But  there  was  little 
in  his  outer  bearing  to  reveal  the  grandeur  of  soul, 
which  lifts  his  figure,  with  all  the  simple  majesty  of 
an  ancient  statue,  out  of  the  smaller  passions,  the 
meaner  impulses  of  the  world  around  him.  What 
recommended  him  for  command  was  simply  his 
weight  among  his  fellow-land-owners  of  Virginia, 
and  the  experience  of  war,  which  he  had  gained  by 
services  in  border  contests  with  the  French  and 
Indians,  as  well  as  in  Braddock's  luckless  expedition 
against  Fort  Duquesne.  It  was  only  as  the  weary 
fight  went  on  that  the  colonists  discovered,  however 
slowly  and  imperfectly,  the  greatness  of  their  leader, 
his  clear  judgment,  his  heroic  endurance,  his  silence 
under  difficulties,  his  calmness  in  the  hour  of  danger 
or  defeat ;  the  patience  with  which  he  waited,  the 
quickness  and  hardness  with  which  he  struck,  the 
lofty  and  serene  sense  of  duty  that  never  swerved 
from  its  task  through  resentment  or  jealousy,  that 
never  through  war  or  peace  felt  the  touch  of  a  meaner 
ambition,  that  knew  no  aim  save  that  of  guiding  the 
freedom  of  his  fellow-countrymen,  and  no  personal 
longing  save  that  of  returning  to  his  own  fireside 
when  their  freedom  was  secured." 

Washington's  "  centurie  of  praise  "  would  be  in- 
complete without  the  words  of  another  great 
Englishman,  whose  superlative  insight  into  char- 
acter was  never  blinded  by  insular  prejudice. 


288  George  Washington 

"  He  had  the  glory,"  wrote  Thackeray,  "  of  facing 
and  overcoming  not  only  veterans  amply  provided  and 
inured  to  war,  but  wretchedness,  cold,  hunger,  dissen- 
sions, treason  within  his  own  camp,  where  all  must 
have  gone  to  rack  but  for  the  pure  unquenchable 
flame  of  patriotism  that  was  for  ever  burning  in  the 
bosom  of  the  heroic  leader.  What  a  constancy,  what 
magnanimity,  what  a  surprising  persistency  against 
fortune!  Washington  before  the  enemy  was  no  bet- 
ter nor  braver  than  hundreds  that  fought  with  him 
or  against  him.  But  Washington,  the  chief  of  a  na- 
tion in  arms ;  doing  battle  with  distracted  parties ; 
calm  in  the  midst  of  conspiracy ;  serene  against  the 
open  foe  before  him  and  the  darker  enemies  at  his 
back ;  Washington  inspiring  order  and  spirit  into 
troops  hungry  and  in  rags ;  stung  by  ingratitude,  but 
betraying  no  anger, — and  never  so  sublime  as  on  that 
day  when  he  laid  down  his  victorious  sword  and 
sought  his  noble  retirement — here  indeed  is  a  char- 
acter to  admire  and  revere,  a  life  without  a  stain,  a 
fame  without  a  flaw." 

If  Washington  was  in  any  sense  "  Fabius,"  he 
was  a  Fabius  to  whose  name  the  not  ignoble  epithet 
"  Maximus  "  must  be  attached. 

"  The  die  is  cast,"  cried  George  III.,  "  and  the 
colonies  must  either  triumph  or  submit." 

And  what  was  the  character  of  the  King  whom 
fate  or  fortune  had  pitted  against  the  American,  in 
whose  veins  ran  the  strength,  the  coolness,  the 
courage,  the  unconquerable  will  of  an  ancestry  far 
more  perfectly  English  than  the  King's  ?  An  Amer- 


The  Heart  of  the  Revolution    289 

ican  would  hesitate  to  write  the  words:  let  them, 
therefore,  fall  from  the  pen  of  an  English  historian : 

"  During  the  first  ten  years  of  his  reign,"  says 
Green,  "  he  managed  to  reduce  government  to  a 
shadow,  and  to  turn  the  loyalty  of  his  subjects  at  home 
into  disaffection.  Before  twenty  years  were  over  he 
had  forced  the  American  colonies  into  revolt  and 
independence  and  brought  England  to  what  then 
seemed  the  brink  of  ruin.  Work  such  as  this  has 
sometimes  been  done  by  very  great  men,  and  often 
by  very  wicked  and  profligate  men;  but  George  was 
neither  profligate  nor  great.  He  had  a  smaller  mind 
than  any  English  King  before  him  since  James  II. 
He  was  wretchedly  educated  and  his  natural  powers 
were  of  the  meanest  sort.  Nor  had  he  the  capacity 
for  using  greater  minds  than  his  own,  by  which  some 
sovereigns  have  concealed  their  natural  littleness. 
On  the  contrary  his  only  feeling  toward  great  men 
was  one  of  jealousy  and  hate.  But  dull  and  petty  as 
his  temper  was,  he  was  clear  as  to  his  purpose  and 
obstinate  in  the  pursuit  of  it;  and  his  purpose  was 
to  rule.  .  .  . 

"  The  blow  which  shattered  the  attempt  of  England 
to  wield  an  autocratic  power  over  her  colonies,  shat- 
tered the  attempt  of  the  King  to  establish  an  auto- 
cratic power  over  England  itself.  The  ministry, 
which  bore  the  name  of  Lord  North,  had  been  a  mere 
screen  for  the  administration  of  George  III.,  and  its 
ruin  was  the  ruin  of  the  system  he  had  striven  to  build 
up.  Never  again  was  the  crown  to  possess  such 
power  as  he  had  wielded.  .  .  . 

"  The  irony  of  fate  doomed  him  to  take  the  first 


290  George  Washington 

step  in  an  organic  change  which  has  converted  that 
aristocratic  monarchy  into  a  democratic  republic, 
ruled  under  monarchical  forms." 

In  the  pages  of  Miss  Burney's  Diary  this  "  little  " 
King  appears  as  a  gentle,  harmless,  gay,  fascinating 
person,  eaten  through  and  through  with  unconscious 
selfishness,  surrounded  by  six  lovely  princesses,  his 
daughters,  worshipped  by  "  the  most  sweet  queen  " 
Charlotte,  flitting  in  and  out  of  the  palace  rooms, 
through  which  he  is  soon  to  wander  in  desolate  and 
irreparable  madness,  haranguing  imaginary  parlia- 
ments and  addressing  imaginary  armies.  History 
does  not  present  a  more  pitiable  or  more  tragic 
figure. 

The  preceding  eulogies  on  Washington's  abili- 
ties as  a  soldier,  engineer,  and  tactician  were  rapidly 
realised  in  the  following  months.  While  he  could 
not  of  course  be  everywhere,  his  far-seeing  eye  and 
indefatigable  pen  swept  to  every  part  of  the  long  line, 
saw  and  met  difficulties,  swept  away  obstacles,  pro- 
vided for  every  emergency,  anticipated  as  far  as 
possible  every  movement  of  the  enemy. 

The  first  year  of  the  Revolution  had  come  and 
gone,  the  experimental  stage  had  passed;  great 
movements  in  Canada  and  the  Carolinas  had  taken 
place,  vacillating  between  success  and  failure.  In 
Canada,  Arnold  and  Montgomery  after  heroic 
marches,  splendid  attacks,  and  daring  enterprises  on 
the  St.  Lawrence,  at  Quebec  and  Montreal,  had  at 
last  succumbed  to  Carleton  and  the  regulars;  Mont- 
gomery was  killed,  Arnold  wounded;  Canada  had 


The  Heart  of  the  Revolution   291 

to  be  evacuated,  and  the  Americans  retreated  to 
Crown  Point  and  Ticonderoga.  Generals  Schuyler 
and  Gates  were  left  in  ambiguous  relations  as  to  the 
supreme  command  of  the  Northern  army,  and  jeal- 
ousies flamed  forth  anew. 

In  the  South,  on  the  other  hand,  fortune  had 
attended  General  Lee,  Colonel  Moultrie,  and  Colonel 
Thompson  in  the  defence  of  Charleston,  when  Sir 
Peter  Parker,  Sir  Henry  Clinton,  and  the  English 
fleet  had  been  gallantly  repulsed,  the  fleet  driven  off 
to  New  York,  and  peace  and  quiet  secured  for  the 
Carolinas  for  three  years  to  come. 

By  the  middle  of  August,  1776,  the  vicinity  of 
New  York  swarmed  with  from  twenty-five  to  thirty 
thousand  British  regulars  and  Hessians  under  the 
Howes,  Earls  Cornwallis  and  Percy,  Clinton, 
Parker,  De  Heister  (commander  of  the  Hessians), 
and  Grant,  while  the  lower  Bay  and  Hudson  River 
presented  a  menacing  picture  of  scores  of  great 
battle-ships,  transports,  sloops  of  war,  floating  bat- 
teries for  the  destruction  of  the  city  and  its  sur- 
roundings. 

Had  the  British  had  one  commander  of  striking 
ability  at  this  stage  of  the  war — one-tenth  of  a 
Marlborough,  one-fiftieth  of  a  Wellington — how 
different  might  have  been  the  tale  to  tell !  But  run, 
for  a  moment,  over  the  list  of  starred  and  gartered 
incompetence — Gage,  the  Howes,  Burgoyne,  Clin- 
ton, Parker,  Carleton,  Tarleton,  Cornwallis,  many 
of  these  men  "  parlour  knights  "  armed  with  mani- 
festoes, proclamations,  honeyed  words,  rather  than 


292  George  Washington 

with  the  sense  of  true  right  and  justice;  what  else 
could  be  expected  than — Yorktown? 

The  same  blundering  shortsightedness,  which  had 
characterised  the  Howes  at  Boston,  now  pursued 
them  at  New  York.  Thousands  of  splendid  troops 
trained  in  the  British  regular  army  were  at  their 
command, — one  might  add,  at  their  mercy;  yet  no 
effective  steps  were  taken  to  sever  the  confederacy 
in  twain,  cut  off  New  England  from  Pennsylvania 
and  Virginia,  and  thus  force  the  belligerents  to  sue 
for  peace.  The  same  gross  inertia  seized  and  pos- 
sessed the  foreigners  at  Philadelphia,  when  that  city 
fell  into  their  hands  some  months  later ;  and  though 
their  approaching  occupation  of  New  York  was  to 
last  more  than  seven  long  years,  until  the  Revolution 
had  been  two  years  an  accomplished  fact,  they  never 
even  handled  the  acquisition  like  intelligent  beings, 
much  less  as  the  most  significant  conquest  of  the 
war.  They  held  it  indeed,  but  with  what  exhibitions 
of  folly,  with  what  ceaseless  inactivity,  what  dis- 
regard of  its  strategic  importance,  what  weakness 
and  instability  of  purpose! 

The  operations  around  New  York,  in  the  autumn 
of  1776,  were  a  signal  illustration  of  Washington's 
ability,  under  the  most  harassing  circumstances,  in 
keeping  the  enemy  at  bay,  in  defending  heroically 
a  line  huge,  sinuous,  indefensible  at  many  points,  in 
holding  his  own  on  the  whole,  and  in  wearing  out  a 
foe  skilled  in  attack  and  overflowing  with  resources. 
New  York  and  its  environs  were  much  too  vast  for 
him,  with  his  slender  resources,  famished  militia- 


The  Heart  of  the  Revolution   293 

men,  and  rebellious  soldiery,  to  retain  or  to  defend; 
yet  for  months  together  he  kept  up  the  unequal 
struggle,  with  Howe's -and  Parker's  and  Dunmore's 
combined  fleets  anchored  in  the  bay,  thousands  of 
regulars  whitening  Staten  Island  and  Long  Island 
with  their  tents  and  martial  glitter,  and  every  advan- 
tage of  arms  and  accoutrements,  known  at  this  time, 
in  possession  of  his  antagonists.  His  irregular  and 
undisciplined  troops  were  overmastered  in  an  en- 
gagement called  the  battle  of  Brooklyn  Heights,  in 
August ;  but  he  escaped  with  marvellous  alertness — 
"  the  old  fox  "  as  they  called  him — across  the  deep 
river  with  his  nine  thousand  men  to  New  York,  and 
there  remained  till  he  was  in  danger  of  being  sur- 
rounded and  entrapped  by  Howe's  powerful  forces. 
Then,  mercifully  abstaining  from  burning  the  city, 
he  left  it  without  confusion  or  disaster  or  over- 
whelming loss,  and  retired  to  King's  Bridge,  Har- 
lem Plains,  Fort  Washington,  and  Fort  Lee. 

The  results  for  the  Americans  were  negative  in 
one  sense,  and  positive  in  another.  The  Highlands 
of  the  Hudson  were  seized  and  fortified;  the  battle 
of  Harlem  Plains  favoured  the  Continental  side,  yet 
Fort  Washington  with  its  garrison  of  three  thou- 
sand men  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  and 
caused  the  evacuation  of  the  surrounding  country. 
One  disaster  seemed  momentarily  linked  to  another ; 
hundreds  deserted  or  went  home  on  the  American 
side :  "  they  are  a  set  of  tatterdemalions,"  wrote  a 
British  officer ;  "  there  is  hardly  a  whole  pair  of 
breeches  in  an  entire  regiment."  Famine,  small- 


294  George  Washington 

pox,  camp  fever,  bleeding  feet,  hunger-bitten  coun- 
tenances, wild  desire  for  plunder,  uncontrollable 
homesickness  were  familiar  spectacles  in  all  the  pa- 
triot camps.  Towards  the  end  of  the  year,  General 
Lee,  second  in  command  to  Washington,  was  dis- 
gracefully captured  and  carried  off  in  slippers  and 
dressing-gown — some  think  by  premeditation — by  a 
handful  of  regulars.  The  army  dwindled  at  one 
time  to  three  or  four  thousand  men,  and  Cornwallis, 
thinking  the  war  was  over,  prepared  to  return  to 
England. 

But  just  at  this  point,  Fortune  turned  her  wheel, 
and  the  Jersey  campaign  with  its  brilliant  successes 
changed  despair  to  bright  expectation,  and  made  the 
battles  of  Princeton  and  Trenton  red-letter  anniver- 
saries in  the  history  of  American  independence. 

These  engagements,  with  Washington's  crossings 
of  the  ice-laden  Delaware  in  December  of  this  year, 
exemplified  the  quick  and  ceaseless  watchfulness  of 
the  commander,  whose  activity  was  only  matched 
by  the  inactivity  of  the  foe.  Finding  it  impossible, 
with  his  wretched  little  bands  of  hungering  and 
often  disaffected  yeomanry,  to  pursue  any  but  a 
defensive  policy,  he  dealt  many  a  sudden  and  dis- 
astrous blow  at  the  invaders,  decimated  their  ranks 
by  capture,  and  so  disheartened  the  Howes,  that  new 
offers  of  peace,  and  proclamations  of  pardon,  and 
holding  out  of  the  now  withered  olive  branch  en- 
sued. Franklin,  John  Adams,  and  Rutledge  even 
met  the  British  Commission,  and  much  mild  palaver 
about  returning  to  their  allegiance,  unconditional 


The  Heart  of  the  Revolution    295 

surrender,  etc.,  passed  ineffectually  between  the 
combatants. 

No  peace  on  such  terms  was  practicable. 

The  year  1777  was  memorable  for  many  things, 
but  for  none  more  than  for  the  humane  and  eloquent 
utterance  of  Lord  Chatham  who,  when  it  was  pro- 
posed to  use  the  savages  against  America,  spoke  the 
words  quoted  below. 

It  was  upon  this  memorable  occasion  that  he  made 
the  famous  reply  to  Lord  Suffolk,  who  had  said, 
in  reference  to  employing  the  Indians,  that,  "  we 
were  justified  in  using  all  the  means  which  God  and 
nature  had  put  into  our  hands."  The  circumstance 
of  Lord  Chatham  having  himself  revised  this  speech 
is  an  inducement  to  insert  it  here  in  full : 

"  I  am  ashamed,"  exclaimed  Lord  Chatham,  as  he 
rose,  "  shocked  to  hear  such  principles  confessed,  to 
hear  them  avowed  in  this  House  or  in  this  country ; 
principles  equally  unconstitutional,  inhuman,  and  un- 
christian. 

"  My  Lords,  I  did  not  intend  to  have  trespassed 
again  on  your  attention,  but  I  cannot  repress  my  in- 
dignation. I  feel  myself  impelled  by  every  duty.  My 
Lords,  we  are  called  upon  as  members  of  this  House, 
as  men,  as  Christian  men,  to  protest  against  such 
notions,  standing  near  the  throne,  polluting  the  ear  of 
majesty.  That  God  and  nature  put  into  our  hands!  — 
I  know  not  what  idea  that  Lord  may  entertain  of  God 
and  nature,  but  I  know  that  such  abominable  prin- 
ciples are  equally  abhorrent  to  religion  and  humanity. 
What !  attribute  the  sacred  sanction  of  God  and  nature 


296  George  Washington 

to  the  massacres  of  the  Indian  scalping-knife,  to  the 
cannibal  savage,  torturing,  murdering,  roasting,  and 
eating ;  literally,  my  Lords,  eating  the  mangled  victims 
of  his  barbarous  battles !  Such  horrible  notions  shock 
ever}'  precept  of  religion,  divine  and  natural,  and  every 
generous  feeling  of  humanity;  and,  my  Lords,  they 
shock  every  sentiment  of  honor;  they  shock  me  as  a 
lover  of  honorable  war,  and  a  detester  of  murderous 
barbarity. 

"  These  abominable  principles,  and  this  more  abomi- 
nable avowal  of  them,  demand  most  decisive  indigna- 
tion." » 

Washington  was  earnestly  in  favour  of  a  standing 
army  of  forty  thousand  men  who  should  steadily 
train  for  battle,  and  take  the  place  of  the  vacillating 
mob  whose  terms  of  enlistments  were  continually 
expiring,  and  whose  insubordination,  sectional  jeal- 
ousies, and  disobedience  kept  him  a  continual  prey 
to  anxiety.  So  high  an  opinion  did  Congress  have 
of  his  virtues  and  patriotism,  that  they  appointed 
him  military  Dictator  for  six  months,  with  full 
powers  to  do  as  he  pleased  in  the  conduct  of  the  cam- 
paign. And  never  was  confidence  better  placed,  or 
in  the  end  better  justified. 

The  day  after  the  battle  of  Trenton  (Dec.  25th), 
in  which  a  thousand  Hessians  were  captured,  their 
leader,  Colonel  Rales,  mortally  wounded,  and  the 
rest  sent  flying  and  frightened  to  Princeton,  this 
honour  was  conferred  without  any  knowledge  of 
the  victory  just  gained,  at  the  very  time,  too,  when 

1  Lord  Brougham,  Essay  on  Chatham,  1777,  p.  38. 


The  Heart  of  the  Revolution   297 

Horatio  Gates  and  others  were  planning  underhand 
assaults  on  the  reputation  of  the  commander.  It  is 
pathetically  recorded  that,  at  this  time,  as  if  frozen 
to  insensibility  by  sufferings  and  a  profound  sense 
of  responsibility,  Washington  was  never  seen  to 
smile.  Day  and  night  he  was  pursued  by  the  phan- 
tom of  his  dissolving  army,  sorrow  over  the  evacua- 
tion of  New  York  and  the  surrender  of  Fort 
Washington,  apprehensions  for  the  safety  of  Phila- 
delphia, which  the  Congress  had  already  abandoned 
for  Baltimore,  and  intense  sympathy  with  his  naked 
and  barefooted  troops,  barely  six  thousand  of  whom 
still  clung  feebly  to  him.  His  letters  at  this  time  are 
passionate  and  powerful  outcries  against  the  delays 
of  Congress,  the  lack  of  patriotism  in  the  provinces, 
the  insufficiency  of  men  and  money;  the  thousand 
questions  of  camp-fire  and  bivouac,  tossed  irresist- 
ibly to  and  fro  by  his  martyred  soldiers  as  they 
froze  in  the  icy  December  weather,  unprotected  by 
tents  or  blankets,  shoeless,  in  rags,  rise  to  the  sur- 
face of  these  plain-spoken  epistles,  and  reveal  a  state 
of  things  which  amply  explains  this  unsmiling  time. 
Delightful,  therefore,  was  the  radiant  little  gleam 
of  happiness  that  came  with  Trenton,  soon  to 
broaden  into  beaming  joy  over  the  twin  victory  of 
Princeton,  another  of  those  sudden,  Napoleonic 
moves  which  occasionally  varied  the  compulsory 
"  Fabian  policy  "  of  the  Americans.  To  watch,  to 
wait,  to  hold  his  own,  to  lose  no  gained  advantage, 
to  be  ever  on  the  qui  vive,  to  pounce  suddenly  upon 
the  dreaming  foe,  asleep  at  his  Christmas  revels,  to 


298  George  Washington 

inflict  a  deadly  blow  and  then  retire  unharmed  to 
his  leafy  lair :  such  was  the  only  safe  course  at  this 
juncture  for  the  American  panther,  fighting  against 
fearful  odds.  To  risk  any  more,  to  risk  simply  for 
the  sake  of  risking,  or  to  placate  a  civilian  Congress 
a  hundred  miles  away,  yet  continually  interfering, 
would  have  brought  infinite  disaster,  and  soon 
closed  the  war. 

The  true  Continental  policy,  therefore,  was  the  one 
pursued — to  wear  the  British  out,  to  cripple  their 
fleet  by  swarms  of  swift  privateers,  flying  in  and 
out  every  cove  and  inlet,  to  capture  big  and  little 
bands  of  marauders  in  detail,  to  hem  in,  cut  off, 
starve  out  if  possible,  to  hang  like  wasps  on  flank 
and  rear  and  sting  to  death  man  by  man. 

And  the  event,  four  years  from  now,  proved  the 
wisdom  of  this  policy  which,  under  the  circum- 
stances, was  the  only  one  practicable. 

Small  successes  like  these — small  in  one  sense, 
large  in  another — filled  the  land  with  enthusiasm, 
checked  the  contagion  of  desertion,  and  again  called 
forth  the  public  thanks  of  Congress.  With  every 
advantage  of  men,  money,  artillery,  and  mercenaries, 
the  invaders  accomplished  nothing;  and  Washing- 
ton, profiting  by  their  lethargy,  went  into  winter 
quarters  at  Morristown,  preparing  to  rest  and  re- 
cruit his  forces  for  the  summer  campaign.  The 
swiftness  of  his  down-rush  on  Trenton  and  Prince- 
ton, the  celerity  and  secrecy  of  his  movements 
everywhere  in  upper  Jersey,  and  his  personal  per- 
suasiveness and  popularity  among  the  troops, 


The  Heart  of  the  Revolution   299 

bespoke  him  a  dangerous  foe  and  vexed  the  very 
soul  of  Cornwallis  and  Lord  Howe.  Incredible  as 
it  may  seem,  nothing  was  done  by  either  army  until 
May,  a  most  welcome  rest  for  Washington,  a  most 
inexcusable  loss  of  time  for  Howe.  Washington 
lay  vigilant  in  the  hills,  watching  every  movement 
of  the  enemy,  cheered  by  the  presence  of  his  devoted 
wife,  studying  with  his  aides  the  new  plan  of  cam- 
paign, writing  volumes  of  dispatches  to  Congress, 
to  the  governors  of  the  different  States,  to  General 
Schuyler  at  Albany,  to  Benjamin  Harrison,  Richard 
Henry  Lee,  and  other  influential  personal  friends  at 
Philadelphia,  to  friends  and  kinspeople  in  his  be- 
loved Virginia,  letters  frankly  full  of  his  hopes  and 
fears. 

The  American  Commission  abroad  had  at  length 
aroused  the  interest  of  France,  and  five  thousand 
muskets  and  stores  of  ammunition  arrived  to  cheer 
the  Americans.  Foreign  officers  began  to  flock  to 
the  shores  of  the  New  World,  and  entangle  Con- 
gress in  curious  and  annoying  questions  of  rank, 
pay,  appointments,  and  commissions.  Many  of 
these  were  noble  and  magnanimous  souls — Kos- 
ciuszko,  Pulaski,  LaFayette,  De  Kalb,  and,  a  little 
later,  Steuben,  De  Grasse,  and  Rochambeau,  are 
noble  names  for  any  nation  to  enroll  in  its  legion 
of  honour,  but  particularly  so  for  America  at  this 
forlorn  and  often  hopeless  time.  Seeds  of  freedom 
had  been  scattered  broadcast  all  over  Europe  by 
Locke  and  "  Junius,"  Bolingbroke  and  Voltaire, 
John  Wilkes  and  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  and  these 


3oo  George  Washington 

seeds  had  germinated  plentifully  in  Poland,  in 
Prussia,  in  France,  and  in  England,  bearing  as  their 
noble  fruit  the  band  of  devoted  patriots  just  enu- 
merated. 

"  Freedom  shrieked  when  Kosciuszko  fell,"  wrote 
the  poet  Campbell  in  a  memorable  line  which  has 
enbalmed  the  gallant  Lithuanian  who  came  over  to 
help  Washington,  and  survived  the  Revolution 
many  years.  Innumerable  streets,  public  squares, 
towns,  counties,  and  monuments  perpetuate,  in  the 
United  States,  the  name  of  the  gentle  and  gracious 
marquis  who,  at  twenty,  leaves  his  beautiful  wife 
and  vast  possessions  to  serve,  to  starve,  finally  to 
triumph,  with  "Washington.  Steuben,  amid  the  hor- 
rors of  Valley  Forge  and  the  rest  of  that  nightmare 
winter,  first  taught  the  Americans  what  regular  dis- 
cipline was.  To  Americans,  Poland  is  not  only  the 
land  of  great  novelists  and  exquisite  musicians,  it 
is  the  land  of  Pulaski,  who  fell  nobly  fighting  for 
American  freedom;  and,  but  for  the  timely  aid  of 
the  countrymen  of  D'Estaing,  De  Grasse,  and  Ro- 
chambeau,  American  independence  would  probably 
never  have  been  achieved. 

As  the  long  months  of  1777  uncoiled  themselves 
from  the  "  loom  of  Time,"  they  gradually  wove 
their  substance  into  a  fabric  of  mingled  light  and 
shade,  of  gloom  and  gladness,  that  soon  became 
characteristic  of  the  whole  war.  The  beginning  of 
the  year  was  all  light  for  the  Americans.  Then  the 
long  and  much-needed  hibernation  at  Morristown 
and  Middlebrook  ensued.  Mid-summer  revealed 


The  Heart  of  the  Revolution   301 

alarming  activity  of  Burgoyne,  Riedesel,  Breymann, 
and  Carleton  in  the  vicinity  of  Lake  Champlain, 
where  St.  Clair  was  forced  to  abandon  Ticonderoga, 
Arnold  with  his  little  fleet  was  swept  from  the 
water,  and  seven  or  eight  thousand  regulars, 
Hessians,  Canadians,  and  Indians,  with  a  huge 
train  of  artillery  and  abundant  stores,  were  creeping 
cautiously  towards  Albany,  to  form  if  possible  a 
junction  with  Howe  and  Clinton,  and  sweep  the 
Hudson  with  a  "  besom  of  destruction." 

The  scheme  was  well  planned,  but  it  did  not  take 
into  proper  consideration  two  all-important  factors : 
the  treachery  of  the  Indian  allies,  and  the  high 
spirit  of  the  New  York  and  New  England  yeo- 
manry. The  Indians  were  the  wind  in  human  form : 
one  moment  here,  the  next  there ;  fickle,  inconstant, 
destitute  of  patriotism  or  principle,  vindictive  as 
treacherous,  a  people  of  moods,  all  smiles  or  frowns 
according  to  circumstances,  actuated  by  no  govern- 
ing thought  save  need  or  greed,  or  vengeance  on  the 
paleface,  be  he  friend  or  foe,  creatures  of  impulse 
and  impression,  totally  unreliable  in  the  great  issues 
of  life. 

The  credulous  Burgoyne  had  hundreds  of  these 
uncertain  allies  in  his  pay,  and,  at  the  critical  mo- 
ment, they  deserted  him  in  the  dark  wood,  and  con- 
tributed to  a  catastrophe  more  fearful  than  that 
which,  in  far  Virginia,  had  linked  the  name  of  the 
ill-fated  Braddock  inseparably  with  the  first  great 
American  tragedy. 

If  the  Indians  were  the  wind  incarnate,  the  yeo- 


3O2  George  Washington 

manry  of  this  beautifully  picturesque  region  of  the 
Adirondacks,  the  Vermont  and  Berkshire  Hills,  and 
the  Hudson  and  Mohawk  valleys  were  a  wall,  but 
a  moving  wall  here,  there,  and  everywhere  where 
danger  or  honour  called,  men  actuated  by  the  purest 
patriotism,  the  highest  motives,  the  most  unselfish 
devotion,  living  exemplifications  of  the  fury  that 
lies  latent  in  the  plough-boy,  the  hunter,  the  dweller 
in  the  lonely  forest,  the  denizen  of  the  river  and  the 
mountain,  when  his  sweetness  is  turned  to  gall,  his 
honey  to  vinegar,  and  his  gay  laugh  to  a  sardonic 
grin  under  the  nitric  acid  of  just  indignation. 

The  strategic  blunder  of  Burgoyne  was  precisely 
in  putting  himself  superciliously,  in  an  unguarded 
moment,  at  the  mercy  of  these  twin  elements.  All 
seemed  as  beautiful  as  a  summer  dream  to  this  fan- 
tastic captain — more  skilled  in  scribbling  tasteless 
plays  than  in  commanding  armies — as  he  started 
gaily  forth  down  the  lovely  shores  of  Champlain, 
drums  beating,  banners  flying,  his  flotilla  cleaving 
the  silver  waters  of  the  lake,  all  as  bright  and  fan- 
ciful as  a  Venetian  festa.  Travellers  know  the 
delightful  beauty  of  this  region  in  midsummer — the 
shadowy  woods,  the  crystal  lakes  sunk  deep  in  the 
primeval  forests,  the  dashing  mountain  streams,  the 
lordly  mountains  themselves,  with  their  splendid 
verdure  of  fir  and  beech  and  birch  and  exuberant 
fern, — each  with  its  musical  Indian  name  hanging 
like  a  tassel  to  it :  now  all  peace  and  rich  landscape 
beauty.  But  then — 

Into  this  realm  of  elves  and  fairies,  of  goblins  and 


The  Heart  of  the  Revolution   303 

Indians,  where  every  tree  would  soon  change  to  a 
flame  of  cannon  or  a  flash  of  flint-lock — into  this 
region,  dragging  his  heavy  brass  cannon,  his  long 
train  of  baggage  waggons,  his  sappers  and  miners 
and  pickets,  the  cavalcade  even  accompanied  by  la- 
dies of  rank,  advanced  the  incautious  invader,  until 
as  the  months  from  July  to  October  moved  on,  with 
now  and  then  a  brilliant  small  success,  such  as  the  re- 
capture of  this  much-captured  Ticonderoga,  he 
reached  the  neighbourhood  of  Saratoga. 

A  Congressional  cabal  meanwhile  had  placed 
General  Gates  over  the  head  of  the  gallant  Schuyler, 
just  as  the  fruits  of  Schuyler's  long  and  patient  toil 
were  about  to  be  gathered.  Eleven  thousand  men 
had  now  assembled  in  the  various  American  camps 
around  Lake  George,  Stillwater,  Saratoga,  and 
Bemis's  Heights.  In  August,  a  brigade  of  these  led 
by  the  sturdy  Stark  fell  on  the  British  at  Bennington, 
Vermont,  and  defeated  them,  crippling  Burgoyne 
and  causing  a  panic  in  his  camp.  It  was  one  of  those 
scares  that  cause  people  to  "  realise  "  things — a 
smart  sense  of  danger,  the  perils  of  advancing  too 
far  from  one's  base  into  an  enemy's  country,  the 
inadequacy  of  one's  resources,  the  valour  and  deter- 
mination of  the  foe.  Bennington  was  an  object- 
lesson  just  two  months  ahead  of  Saratoga,  but  it 
seems  to  have  taught  Burgoyne  nothing.  One  thing 
especially  he  never  "  realised  " :  that  New  England 
was  not  Pennsylvania  or  lower  New  York ;  loyalists 
were  few  and  far  between;  every  man  was  as  true 
as  steel,  and  the  woods  swarmed  with  keen-eyed 


304  George  Washington 

marksmen — men  born  to  the  gun,  inured  to  hard- 
ship, full  of  zeal  for  the  cause,  whose  hearts,  once 
soft  for  the  old  country,  had  hardened  into  rock  and 
were  possessed  with  the  fixed  idea  to  be  free.  En- 
trapped, so  to  speak,  in  his  own  meshes,  caught  in 
a  cordon  of  foes  that  could  not  bend  or  be  broken, 
boastfully  proclaiming  that  he  would  eat  his  Christ- 
mas dinner  at  Albany,  this  second  Miles  Gloriosus 
actually  fulfilled  his  threat,  and  really  ate  the 
Christmas  turkey  among  the  "  Mynheers  "  but  as — 
a  captive ! 

On  the  i /th  of  October,  1777, — almost  the  iden- 
tical date  to  assume,  four  years  hence,  a  world-wide 
celebrity  at  Yorktown, — the  conqueror,  distressed, 
bewildered,  haggard  with  disappointed  ambition, 
and,  doubtless,  heartily  ashamed  of  himself  for  the 
part  he  had  played,  ingloriously  capitulated — he,  his 
officers  and  army  of  six  thousand  men,  seven  thou- 
sand stand  of  arms,  great  store  of  artillery  and 
provisions,  Hessians,  Indians,  and  all,  wiped  at  one 
fell  blow  from  the  face  of  the  earth. 

This  splendid  achievement  was  largely  due  to  the 
heroic  temper  and  exertions  of  Benedict  Arnold  and 
General  Schuyler,  two  men  grossly  slighted  by  Con- 
gress, but  distinguished  by  Washington  with  every 
mark  of  respect  and  consideration.  Arnold  began 
his  career  as  a  true  patriot,  filled  with  zeal  for  the 
cause,  naturally  gifted  as  a  leader,  imperious,  high- 
strung,  and  indomitable:  Montreal,  Quebec,  Lake 
Champlain  were  strewn  with  his  achievements.  He 
thirsted  for  glory  but  he  also  thirsted  for  official 


The  Heart  of  the  Revolution   305 

recognition.  This  was  systematically  denied  him, 
and  his  ardent  nature,  soured  by  repeated  disap- 
pointments, by  continual  snubs,  by  the  elevation  of 
meaner  men  over  his  head,  soured,  darkened,  grew 
embittered,  at  last  drank  of  the  poison  cup  of  over- 
powering temptation — and  fell. 

The  crown  of  his  humiliation  was  complete  when 
Gates  deprived  him  of  his  commission,  and  ordered 
him  off  the  field  of  Bemis's  Heights,  omitting  his 
name  entirely  in  the  account  of  Burgoyne's  sur- 
render. 

"  Burgoyne  and  some  of  his  principal  officers  met 
with  a  reception  in  the  American  camp  which  they  little 
dreamed  of.  Gates  behaved  toward  them  with  the  ut- 
most courtesy ;  but  the  generosity  of  Schuyler,  who 
was  present  at  the  surrender,  and  whose  property  had 
been  wickedly  destroyed,  equalled  anything  to  be  found 
in  the  annals  of  chivalry.  The  Baroness  Riedesel,  who 
has  left,  in  her  Memoirs,  a  most  charming  and  graphic 
picture  of  the  scenes  in  which  she  participated  in  this 
country,  and  particularly  in  this  campaign,  describes 
the  treatment  she  received  at  his  hands  with  great 
pathos.  She  says,  that  when  she  drew  near  the 
American  tents,  a  good-looking  man  came  towards  her, 
helped  her  children  from  the  caleche  in  which  she  rode, 
and  kissed  and  caressed  them,  at  the  same  time  telling 
her  not  to  be  the  least  alarmed.  Afterward,  when  all 
the  generals  were  about  to  dine  with  Gates,  the  same 
gentleman,  who  she  then  heard  was  General  Schuyler, 
came  to  her,  and  invited  her  to  his  own  tent,  that  she 
might  not  be  embarrassed  in  so  large  a  company,  she 
being  the  only  lady  among  them.  He  entertained  her 


306  George  Washington 

with  many  delicacies,  and  then  gave  her  a  cordial 
invitation  to  visit  him  at  his  house  in  Albany,  where 
he  expected  Burgoyne  would  be  his  guest.  She 
describes  her  reception  there  by  Mrs.  Schuyler  and  her 
daughters,  as  being  like  that  of  a  friend  instead  of  an 
enemy.  '  They  treated  us/  she  said,  '  with  the  most 
marked  attention  and  politeness,  as  they  did  General 
Burgoyne,  who  had  caused  General  Schuyler's  beauti- 
fully finished  house  to  be  burned.  In  fact,  they  be- 
haved like  persons  of  exalted  minds,  who  determined 
to  bury  all  recollections  of  their  own  injuries  in  the 
contemplation  of  our  misfortunes.'  General  Burgoyne 
was  struck  with  General  Schuyler's  generosity,  and 
said  to  him :  '  You  show  me  great  kindness,  though  I 
have  done  you  much  injury.' — '  That  was  the  fate  of 
war,'  replied  the  brave  man,  '  let  us  say  no  more 
about  it.' 

"  General  Schuyler  was  detained  at  Saratoga  when 
Burgoyne  and  his  suite  departed  for  Albany.  He 
wrote  to  his  wife,  requesting  her  to  give  the  British 
general  the  best  reception  in  her  power.  '  He  sent  an 
aid-de-camp  to  conduct  me  to  Albany,'  said  Burgoyne, 
in  a  speech  in  the  British  House  of  Commons,  '  in 
order,  as  he  expressed  it,  to  procure  better  quarters 
than  a  stranger  might  be  able  to  find.  That  gentleman 
(Colonel  Richard  Varick)  conducted  me  to  a  very 
elegant  house,  and,  to  my  great  surprise,  presented  me 
to  Mrs.  Schuyler  and  her  family.  In  that  house  I  re- 
mained during  my  whole  stay  in  Albany,  with  a  table 
of  more  than  twenty  covers  for  me  and  my  friends, 
and  every  other  demonstration  of  hospitality.'  "  l 

1  Lossing,  Washington  and  the  American  Republic,  vol.  ii, 
P-  537- 


The  Heart  of  the  Revolution   307 

While  the  pendulum  swung  thus  high  in  the 
North,  and  began  to  mark  October  as  the  "  most  im- 
memorial month "  of  American  independence,  it 
swung  wofully  low  in  the  South  where  the  Com- 
mander-in-chief, himself,  found  the  army  "  a  great 
chaos,"  as  he  wrote,  from  which  he  was  trying  to 
evolve  some  order.  The  hot  months  had  started 
Burgoyne  and  Howe  from  their  lairs  almost  simul- 
taneously, and,  like  swarms  of  bees,  their  forces 
fastened  on  the  extremities  of  the  confederacy  and 
threatened  to  extinguish  it.  Sir  William  Howe, 
baffling  spies  and  scouts,  appeared  suddenly  with 
two  hundred  sail  off  the  Delaware  capes.  By 
September  1st,  he  had  penetrated  two  hundred  miles 
up  Chesapeake  Bay,  and  landed  eighteen  thousand 
troops  near  the  Elk  River.  As  this  army  headed 
towards  Philadelphia,  it  was  hung  upon  flank  and 
rear  by  "  Light  Horse  "  Harry  Lee,  Generals  Sul- 
livan, Wayne,  and  Greene,  and  such  few  thousands 
of  troops  as  were  present  from  day  to  day.  "  Today 
I  have  a  full  army,  tomorrow  none,"  complained 
Washington.  In  little  more  than  three  weeks  after 
landing  at  Elk  River,  Howe  marched  victoriously 
into  Philadelphia  (Sept.  26th),  though  momentarily 
checked  at  Brandywine,  thirteen  days  before. 

Brandywine,  like  Germantown,  was  one  of  those 
victorious  defeats  which  taught  the  Americans  so 
much,  which  evoked  medals  and  thanks  from  Con- 
gress, lifted  the  Fabian  policy  into  a  science  of  nega- 
tive possibilities,  inspired  in  the  British  respect  for 
their  antagonists,  and  showed  the  folly  of  attempt- 


308  George  Washington 

ing  to  subdue  millions  of  free  people  with  twenty- 
five  thousand  regulars  and  a  few  thousand  hireling 
Hessians.  "  There  are  60,000  babes  born  every 
year  in  America  and  our  commerce  is  worth 
25,000,000  dollars  annually,"  exclaimed  Franklin, 
always  seizing  the  practical  side  of  things. 

And  the  same  philosopher,  on  hearing  of  Howe's 
entry  into  Philadelphia,  wrote,  "  Philadelphia  has 
taken  Howe,  not  Howe  Philadelphia." 

Hannibal  at  Capua  could  not,  indeed,  have  been 
more  effectively  taken  than  Howe  in  the  peaceful 
Quaker  City. 

The  British  now  had  two  costly  bases  a  hundred 
miles  apart,  two  vast  military  camps  to  guard  and 
fortify,  two  fleets  to  maintain,  a  divided  force  and 
plan  of  campaign  to  carry  out,  the  two  most  popu- 
lous cities  in  the  country  to  defend  against  a  wily 
and  untiring  foe.  The  character  of  this  foe  was  well 
described  by  LaFayette: 

"  Eleven  thousand  men  but  tolerably  armed,  and 
still  worse  clad,  presented  a  singular  spectacle ;  in  this 
parti-colored  and  often  naked  state,  the  best  dresses 
were  hunting-shirts  of  brown  linen.  Their  tactics 
were  equally  irregular.  They  were  arranged  without 
regard  to  size,  excepting  that  the  smallest  men  were  in 
the  front  rank.  With  all  this,  these  were  good-looking 
soldiers,  conducted  by  zealous  officers." 

Scarcely  had  the  invaders  settled  down  in  the 
Tory  city,  for  Philadelphia  was  substantially  Tory 
at  that  time,  and  in  the  very  act  of  drinking  toasts 


The  Heart  of  the  Revolution   309 

to  King  George  and  confusion  to  the  Continental 
Congress  over  their  brilliant  success,  when  the 
loving-cup  of  congratulation  was  embittered  by  the 
news  from  Burgoyne.  Thus  the  pendulum  righted 
itself  and  swung  up  heavily  in  favour  of  the  Ameri- 
cans. 

The  capture  of  Philadelphia  seemed  a  great  suc- 
cess, but  the  effect  was  as  nothing  compared  with 
the  capture  of  Burgoyne. 

"  The  surrender  of  Burgoyne  and  his  army  was  an 
event  of  infinite  importance  to  the  republican  cause 
beyond  its  immediate  results.  Hitherto,  during  the 
war,  the  preponderance  of  successes  had  been  on  the 
side  of  the  British ;  and  there  were  doubtful  minds  and 
trembling  hearts  everywhere  among  the  true  friends 
of  the  cause,  to  whom  the  idea  of  deliverance  of  the 
colonists  appeared  almost  chimerical. 

"  The  events  on  the  Brandywine  were  not  calculated 
to  inspire  hope,  even  in  the  most  hopeful ;  and  all  eyes 
were  turned  anxiously  to  the  army  of  the  North.  Every 
breath  of  rumor  from  Saratoga  was  listened  to  with 
eagerness ;  and  when  the  victory  was  certified,  a  shout 
of  triumph  went  up  all  over  the  land — from  the  fur- 
row, and  workshops,  and  marts  of  commerce,  from 
the  pulpit,  from  provincial  halls  of  legislation,  from 
partisan  camps,  and  from  the  shattered  ranks  of  the 
commander-in-chief  of  the  American  armies,  at  White- 
marsh.  The  bills  of  Congress  rose  twenty  per  cent  in 
value;  capital  came  forth  from  its  hiding-places;  the 
militia  of  the  country  were  inspirited,  and  more  hope- 
ful hearts  everywhere  prevailed. 

"  The  Congress,  overjoyed  by  the  event,  forgot  their 


3io  George  Washington 

own  dignity;  and  when  Major  Wilkinson,  Gates' 
bearer  of  despatches  to  that  body,  appeared  at  their 
door,  he  was  admitted  to  the  legislative  floor,  and 
allowed  verbally  to  proclaim  in  the  ear  of  that  august 
assembly :  '  The  whole  British  army  have  laid  down 
their  arms  at  Saratoga ;  our  own,  full  of  vigor  and 
courage,  expect  your  orders ;  it  is  for  your  wisdom  to 
decide  where  the  country  may  still  have  need  of  their 
services.'  In  the  ecstacy  of  the  hour  the  commander- 
in-chief  was  overlooked  and  almost  forgotten ;  and  the 
insult  of  the  elated  Gates,  in  omitting  to  send  his 
despatches  to  his  chief,  was  allowed  to  pass  unrebuked. 

"  Beyond  the  Atlantic  the  effect  of  this  victory  was 
also  very  important.  In  the  British  Parliament  it  gave 
strength  to  the  opposition,  and  struck  the  ministerial 
party  with  dismay.  '  You  may  swell  every  expense 
and  every  effort,  still  more  extravagantly,'  thundered 
Chatham,  as  he  leaned  upon  his  crutches  and  poured 
forth  a  torrent  of  eloquent  invective  and  denunciation. 
'  You  may  pile  and  accumulate  every  assistance  you  can 
buy  or  borrow ;  traffic  and  barter  with  every  little  piti- 
ful German  prince  that  sells  and  sends  his  subjects  to 
the  shambles  of  a  foreign  power ;  your  efforts  are  for 
ever  vain  and  impotent ;  doubly  so  from  this  mercenary 
aid  on  which  you  rely,  for  it  irritates  to  an  incurable 
resentment  the  minds  of  your  enemies.  To  overrun 
with  the  mercenary  sons  of  rapine  and  plunder, 
devoting  them  and  their  possessions  to  the  rapacity  of 
hireling  cruelty ! '  .  .  . 

"  By  this  victory,  unaided  as  the  republicans  were 
by  any  foreign  help  or  encouragement  of  much  impor- 
tance, their  prowess  was  placed  in  the  most  favorable 
light  before  the  eyes  of  continental  Europe.  France 


The  Heart  of  the  Revolution   311 

now  listened  with  respect  to  the  overtures  for  aid  made 
by  the  American  commissioners.  Spain,  the  states- 
general  of  Holland,  the  prince  of  Orange,  Catharine  of 
Russia,  and  even  Ganganelli  (Pope  Clement  the  Four- 
teenth), all  of  whom  feared  and  hated  England  be- 
cause of  her  increasing  puissance  in  arms,  commerce, 
and  diplomacy,  thought  and  spoke  kindly  of  the 
struggling  Americans.  And  on  the  sixth  of  February 
following,  France  acknowledged  the  independence  of 
the  United  States,  and  entered  into  a  treaty  of  friend- 
ship and  commerce,  and  an  alliance  offensive  and  de- 
fensive, with  them."  * 

1Lossing,  Washington  and  the  American  Republic,  vol.  ii, 
P-  539- 


CHAPTER  XVI 

ON  TO  YORKTOWN 

TWENTY-TWO  miles  northwest  of  Philadel- 
phia lies  a  lovely  and  peaceful  little  valley, 
over  which  now  the  very  spirit  of  tranquillity  broods. 
The  green  hills  on  either  side  are  embowered  in 
luxuriant  verdure;  wreaths  of  delicate  blue  smoke 
curl  heavenward  from  many  an  old-fashioned  stone 
chimney;  rich  farms,  ploughed  and  cultivated  by 
a  sturdy  "  Dutch  "  yeomanry,  spread  their  orchards 
and  their  fields  of  grain  in  every  direction;  dairies 
and  vegetable  gardens  vary  the  landscape  with  their 
quaint  architecture  and  many-coloured  expanses  of 
green  in  every  shade;  picturesque  country  roads 
wind  in  and  out  the  curves  of  the  hills ;  rivulets  and 
springs  gladden  the  verdure  with  their  presence,  and 
the  wild  wood,  full  of  birds  and  butterflies  in  the 
summer  season,  everywhere  gives  evidence  of  a  civ- 
ilisation two  centuries  and  a  half  old. 

This  is  one  of  the  most  memorable  spots  in  the 
United  States,  the  spot  where,  in  the  awful  winter 
of  1778,  the  patriot  army,  eleven  thousand  strong, 
huddled  together  in  winter  quarters,  and  strove  to 
keep  soul  and  body  together  until  spring  should  open 
and  deliver  them  from  a  Dante's  Inferno  of  ice  and 
snow.  Here  they  froze  and  starved,  suffered  and 

312 


On  to  Yorktown  313 

died,  martyred  by  alternate  hopes  and  fears,  almost 
within  sound  of  the  bells  of  Philadelphia  where 
plenty  reigned,  bells  which  to  them  were  more  like 
death-bells  than  the  symbols  of  God's  mercy  and 
loving-kindness  to  men. 

Acres  and  acres  of  the  slopes  and  hillsides,  now 
so  beautiful  and  calm  with  the  peace  of  more  than 
a  hundred  years,  then  lay  thickly  strewn  with  log 
cabins  roofed  with  leaves  and  branches,  cabins  12 
by  14  feet,  pointed  with  clay  or  mud,  holding  twelve 
soldiers  each.  Washington  himself,  lynx-eyed  in 
everything  that  concerned  the  comfort  of  his  army, 
issued  the  most  minute  directions  for  the  construc- 
tion of  the  huts,  offered  bounties  for  the  best  and 
speediest  built,  and  on  every  occasion,  wherever 
there  was  the  least  reason  for  it,  composed  and  pro- 
claimed encouraging  bulletins  to  the  soldiers,  bid- 
ding them  be  of  good  cheer,  acquit  themselves  like 
men,  and  cling  tenaciously  to  their  rights  as  mem- 
bers of  free  and  independent  States. 

It  seemed  like  the  very  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of 
Death,  and  the  winter  closed  in  over  the  American 
Army,  sombre,  ominous,  and  despairing. 

"  I  am  now  convinced  beyond  a  doubt,"  wrote 
Washington,  "  that,  unless  some  great  and  capital 
change  suddenly  takes  place  in  that  line  [the  commis- 
sary's department],  this  army  must  inevitably  be  re- 
duced to  one  or  other  of  these  three  things:  starve, 
dissolve,  or  disperse,  in  order  to  obtain  subsistence  in 
the  best  manner  they  can." 

Two  foreign  observers,  the  Marquis  de  LaFayette 


314  George  Washington 

and  Baron  von  Steuben,  testify  as  follows  of  the 
army: 

"  The  unfortunate  soldiers  were  in  want  of  every- 
thing; they  had  neither  coats,  hats,  shirts,  nor  shoes; 
their  feet  and  legs  froze  till  they  became  black,  and  it 
was  often  necessary  to  amputate  them.  From  want  of 
money,  they  could  neither  obtain  provisions  nor  any 
means  of  transport;  the  colonels  were  often  reduced 
to  two  rations,  and  sometimes  even  to  one.  The  army 
frequently  remained  whole  days  without  provisions, 
and  the  patient  endurance  of  both  soldiers  and  officers 
was  a  miracle  which  each  moment  served  to  renew. 
But  the  sight  of  their  misery  prevented  new  engage- 
ments :  it  was  almost  impossible  to  levy  recruits ;  it  was 
easy  to  desert  into  the  interior  of  the  country."  1 

Steuben  says: 

"  The  arms  at  Valley  Forge  were  in  a  horrible  condi- 
tion, covered  with  rust,  half  of  them  without  bayonets, 
many  from  which  a  single  shot  could  not  be  fired. 
The  pouches  were  quite  as  bad  as  the  arms.  A  great 
many  of  the  carbines,  fowling-pieces,  and  rifles  were 
to  be  seen  in  the  same  company.  The  description  of 
the  dress  is  most  easily  given.  The  men  were 
literally  naked,  some  of  them  in  the  fullest  extent  of 
the  word.  The  officers  who  had  coats,  had  them  of 
every  color  and  make.  I  saw  officers,  at  a  grand 
parade  at  Valley  Forge,  mounting  guard  in  a  sort  of 
dressing-gown,  made  of  an  old  blanket  or  woollen 
bed-cover.  With  regard  to  their  military  discipline, 
I  may  safely  say  no  such  thing  existed." 

1  Memoirs  of  LaFayette, 


On  to  Yorktown  315 

It  is  these  men,  whose  "  incomparable  patience  " 
the  Commander  praises  in  warmest  words,  hearts  of 
gold,  able,  each  man,  to  reply  as  Joseph  Reed  when 
approached  by  the  foreign  Peace  Commission  with 
a  bribe :  "  I  am  not  worth  purchasing,  but  such  as 
I  am  King  George  has  not  money  enough  to  buy 
me!" 

Yet  this  inflexible  patriotism  was  set  in  a  sur- 
rounding of  treachery,  lukewarmness,  and  intrigue. 
"  Ah  these  detestable  Tories !  "  exclaims  Elkanah 
Watson  in  his  diary;  and  these  were  the  molluscs 
rather  than  men  who,  in  a  land  literally  flowing  with 
milk  and  honey,  sat  and  smiled  while  the  heroic 
camp  at  Valley  Forge  sat  and  starved.  "  Starve, 
dissolve  or  disperse,"  wrote  Washington  to  Con- 
gress, must  be  the  inevitable  fate  of  the  army,  often 
destitute  of  food  for  days  together,  if  a  proper  com- 
missariat were  not  organised. 

A  burst  of  cheery  radiance  interrupted  the  gloom 
when,  in  May,  with  heartiest  thanksgiving,  the  army 
celebrated  the  news  of  the  treaty  of  alliance  and 
commerce  with  France  signed  the  February  previous. 
The  adventurer  Lee,  with  his  heart  even  then  hatch- 
ing treason,  was  exchanged  for  the  captive  British 
General  Prescott,  who,  a  few  months  before,  had 
been  captured  and  carried  off  in  his  night  clothes 
from  his  Rhode  Island  quarters,  in  a  manner  almost 
identical  with  the  capture  of  Lee.  Received  with  the 
most  affectionate  warmth  by  Washington,  Lee  was 
put  in  command  of  the  right  wing  of  the  army. 


316  George  Washington 

Of  Washington  at  this  time,  a  foreigner  in  the 
camp  wrote: 

"General  Washington  received  the  Baron  [Steuben] 
with  great  cordiality,  and  to  me  he  showed  much  con- 
descending attention.  I  cannot  describe  the  impression 
that  the  first  sight  of  that  great  man  made  upon  me. 
I  could  not  keep  my  eyes  from  that  imposing  counte- 
nance— grave,  yet  not  severe ;  affable,  without  famil- 
iarity. Its  predominant  expression  was  calm  dignity, 
through  which  you  could  trace  the  strong  feelings  of 
the  patriot,  and  discern  the  father  as  well  as  the  com- 
mander of  his  soldiers.  I  have  never  seen  a  picture 
that  represents  him  to  me  as  I  saw  him  at  Valley 
Forge,  and  during  the  campaigns  in  which  I  had  the 
honor  to  follow  him.  Perhaps  that  expression  was 
beyond  the  skill  of  the  painter ;  but  while  I  live  it  will 
remain  impressed  on  my  memory.  I  had  frequent  op- 
portunities of  seeing  him,  as  it  was  my  duty  to  ac- 
company the  Baron  when  he  dined  with  him,  which 
was  sometimes  twice  or  thrice  in  the  same  week.  We 
visited  him  also  in  the  evening,  when  Mrs.  Washington 
was  at  headquarters.  We  were  in  a  manner  domesti- 
cated in  the  family." 

The  terrors  of  that  winter  were  increased,  for 
Washington,  by  the  publication  of  spurious  letters 
attributing  treasonable  sentiments  to  him,  and  by  the 
machinations  of  the  Conway  Cabal  to  remove  him 
from  his  high  position. 

Washington  repudiated  the  letters,  attributed  to 
John  Randolph,  last  royal  Attorney-general  of  Vir- 
ginia, with  scorn,  and  the  shameless  intrigues  of 


On  to  Yorktown  317 

Gates,  Conway  and  the  gang  of  adventurers  about 
them,  fell  to  the  ground. 

The  Capuan  luxury  of  Philadelphia  indeed — or 
the  monumental  folly  of  a  civilian  ministry,  three 
thousand  miles  away,  in  attempting  to  direct  mili- 
tary movements  in  a  land  totally  unfamiliar  to  them 
— proved  too  much  for  the  British,  and  caused  a 
dramatic  turn  of  events  on  the  i8th  of  June,  1778. 
On  that  day,  the  news  first  burst  on  the  astonished 
camp  at  Valley  Forge,  that  Sir  Henry  Clinton  with 
ten  thousand  troops  had  slipped  anchor,  so  to  speak, 
crossed  the  Delaware  with  a  huge  train  of  waggons 
and  artillery,  and  was  scudding  away  in  hot  haste 
over  the  plains  of  Jersey  in  full  retreat  for  New 
York. 

Now,  the  happy  traveller  skims  over  the  ninety 
odd  miles  between  the  two  great  cities  in  ninety 
minutes.  Then,  marching  with  all  possible  speed, 
it  took  the  invaders  from  June  i8th  to  June  3Oth  to 
reach  Sandy  Hook  and  find  themselves  under  the 
protection  of  the  fleet  in  New  York  Harbour.  On 
the  way,  ten  days  after  they  started,  the  British  suf- 
fered a  disastrous  defeat  at  Monmouth  Court  House, 
where  they  were  fiercely  attacked  by  the  Americans, 
and  where  the  ambiguous  conduct  of  Lee,  in  order- 
ing the  Americans  without  reason  to  retreat, 
strengthened  the  prevailing  opinion  that  he  was  a 
traitor.  The  day  was  saved  by  the  vigilance  of 
Washington  and  his  Generals  Greene,  Lord  Stir- 
ling, LaFayette,  and  Cadwallader,  who,  perceiving 
the  confusion,  rallied  the  troops,  flung  them  power- 


3i 8  George  Washington 

fully  against  the  enemy,  and,  by  twilight  of  this 
famous  Sunday,  had  the  foe  in  swift  retreat  towards 
New  York. 

It  was  on  this  occasion  that  the  Marquis  La- 
Fayette  reports  the  historic  scene  between  Washing- 
ton and  Lee: 

"The  conviction  that  Lee  was  a  TRAITOR,  and 
that  this  retreat  was  the  first  bitter  fruit  of  his  treason, 
now  flashed  upon  the  mind  of  Washington.  Already 
the  belief  that  he  was  untrue,  and  a  dangerous  man  in 
the  army,  had  been  forced  upon  the  consideration  of 
many  officers ;  but,  until  the  previous  evening,  the 
generous  heart  of  the  commander-in-chief  would  not 
harbor  such  a  suspicion.  Late  at  night,  the  Reverend 
David  Griffiths,  a  Welshman,  and  chaplain  of  the  third 
Virginia  regiment,  had  repaired  to  headquarters,  and 
warned  the  chief,  in  presence  of  Hamilton,  Harrison, 
and  Fitzgerald,  not  to  employ  General  Lee  in  com- 
manding the  advance  on  the  ensuing  morning.  Wash- 
ington received  the  warning  doubtingly ;  when  the 
reverend  gentleman,  on  retiring,  observed,  '  I  am  not 
permitted  to  say  more  at  present,  but  your  excellency 
will  remember  my  warning  voice  to-morrow,  in  the 
battle.' 

"  Now  that  warning  voice,  Lee's  opposition  to 
attacking  Clinton  at  all,  and  his  changefulness  respect- 
ing the  command  of  the  advance,  all  combined  to  make 
Washington  feel  that  Lee  had  ordered  this  retreat  for 
the  purpose  of  marring  his  plans,  and  disgracing  him 
by  the  loss  of  a  battle,  so  as  to  fulfil  the  traitor's  own 
predictions  of  its  failure.  It  was  under  this  impression, 
acting  upon  a  most  intense  nature,  that  Washington, 


On  to  Yorktown  319 

as  he  was  pushing  forward,  after  ordering  the  flying 
officers  to  form  their  corps  in  his  rear,  met  Lee.  The 
chief  was  terribly  exasperated,  and,  riding  up  to  Lee, 
he  exclaimed,  in  a  tone  of  absolute  fierceness,  '  What 
is  the  meaning  of  all  this,  sir  ? '  Lee  hesitated  for  a 
moment;  when  Washington,  with  furious  aspect  and 
more  furious  words,  again  demanded,  '  Sir,  I  desire  to 
know  what  is  the  reason  of  all  this  disorder  and  con- 
fusion ? ' 

"  The  fiery  Lee,  stung  more  by  Washington's  man- 
ner than  his  words,  made  an  angry  reply;  when  the 
enraged  chief,  no  longer  able  to  control  his  feelings, 
called  him  a  '  damned  poltroon.'  Other  bitter  words 
passed  quickly  between  the  two  generals ;  and,  during 
that  brief  interview,  the  ardent  Hamilton,  who  also 
remembered  the  chaplain's  warning,  drew  his  sword, 
and  exclaimed :  '  Your  excellency  and  this  army  are 
betrayed  ;  and  the  moment  has  arrived  when  every  true 
friend  of  America  and  her  cause  must  be  ready  to  die 
in  their  defence ! ' 

"  But  there  was  no  time  for  altercation.  The  enemy, 
in  pursuit  of  the  fugitives,  were  advancing  in  full  force. 
Wheeling  his  horse,  Washington  hastened  to  the  rear, 
rallied  a  large  portion  of  the  broken  regiments,  and, 
by  the  well-directed  fire  of  some  fieldpieces  which  he 
had  ordered  to  be  placed  in  battery  upon  an  eminence, 
the  British  were  checked.  Washington's  presence 
inspired  the  troops  with  courage,  and  order  was  soon 
brought  out  of  confusion. 

"  Having  made  all  arrangements  with  great  pre- 
cision and  despatch,  the  commander-in-chief  rode  back 
to  Lee  in  a  calmer  state  of  mind,  and,  pointing  to  the 
rallied  troops,  inquired,  'Will  you,  sir,  command  in 


320  George  Washington 

that  place  ? '  'I  will ! '  eagerly  exclaimed  Lee. 
'  Then,'  said  Washington,  '  I  expect  you  to  check  the 
enemy  immediately.'  'Your  command  shall  be  obeyed/ 
responded  Lee,  '  and  I  will  not  be  the  first  to  leave 
the  field.' 

"  Back  to  the  main  army  Washington  now  hurried, 
and  with  wonderful  despatch  formed  the  battalions  in 
order  for  action,  upon  the  eminences  westward  of  a 
small  morass  which  lay  between  them  and  the  enemy. 
Lord  Stirling  was  placed  in  command  of  the  left  wing, 
and  General  Greene  took  position  on  his  right.  Sharp 
fighting  soon  occurred.  Lee's  troops,  exhausted  by 
fatigue  and  the  intense  heat,  were  ordered  to  take 
position  in  the  rear,  near  Englishtown,  and  their  com- 
mander was  directed  to  assemble  the  scattered  fugi- 
tives there. 

"  The  battle  soon  became  general,  and  the  British 
sustained  a  great  loss  in  the  death  of  Colonel  Monck- 
ton.  He  was  killed  while  leading  his  grenadiers  against 
Wayne,  who,  with  some  artillery,  had  taken  a  strong 
position.  His  columns,  terribly  shattered  at  the  same 
time,  recoiled.  The  entire  British  line  soon  gave  way, 
and  the  conflict  ceased."  1 

Later,  Lee  was  court-martialed  and  sentenced  to 
suspension  from  the  army  for  one  year. 

General  Arnold  entered  Philadelphia  with  a  force 
of  Americans,  and  once  again  the  cause  loomed  up 
into  light  and  cheerfulness,  "  obfuscated,"  as  Lee 
expressed  it,  by  the  fall  of  Savannah  in  the  South 
towards  the  end  of  December. 

1  Lossing,  Washington  and  the  American  Republic,  vol.  ii, 
p.  623. 


On  to  Yorktown  321 

Congress  at  once  moved  back  to  the  wealthy 
Quaker  City,  where  immediately  the  busy  pens  of 
the  idlers  begin  to  ply,  diaries  are  kept,  and  pen- 
pictures  of  the  men  and  times  are  abundantly 
painted.  Here  is  Thacher's  portrait  of  Washington : 

"  The  personal  appearance  of  our  Commander  in 
Chief,  is  that  of  the  perfect  gentleman  and  accom- 
plished warrior.  He  is  remarkably  tall,  full  six  feet, 
erect  and  well  proportioned.  The  strength  and  pro- 
portion of  his  joints  and  muscles,  appear  to  be  com- 
mensurate with  the  pre-eminent  powers  of  his  mind. 
The  serenity  of  his  countenance,  and  majestic  grace- 
fulness of  his  deportment,  impart  a  strong  impres- 
sion of  that  dignity  and  grandeur,  which  are  his 
peculiar  characteristics,  and  no  one  can  stand  in  his 
presence  without  feeling  the  ascendency  of  his  mind, 
and  associating  with  his  countenance  the  idea  of 
wisdom,  philanthropy,  magnanimity,  and  patriotism. 
There  is  a  fine  symmetry  in  the  features  of  his  face 
indicative  of  a  benign  and  dignified  spirit.  His  nose 
is  straight  and  his  eyes  inclined  to  blue.  He  wears 
his  hair  in  a  becoming  cue,  and  from  his  forehead 
it  is  turned  back  and  powdered  in  a  manner  which 
adds  to  the  military  air  of  his  appearance.  He  dis- 
plays a  native  gravity,  but  devoid  of  all  appearance 
of  ostentation.  His  uniform  dress  is  a  blue  coat,  with 
two  brilliant  epaulettes,  buff  colored  under  clothes, 
and  a  three  cornered  hat  with  a  black  cockade.  He  is 
constantly  equipped  with  an  elegant  small  sword,  boots 
and  spurs,  in  readiness  to  mount  his  noble  charger." 

The  condition  of  the  currency  rendered  the  men 
of  1778-1779  almost  desperate.  In  May  of  the  lat- 


322  George  Washington 

ter  year,  100  specie  dollars  were  worth  1215  paper 
dollars :  "  a  wagon-load  of  money  will  scarcely  pur- 
chase a  wagon-load  of  provisions,"  wrote  an  eminent 
observer.  The  General  confided  in  Benjamin  Har- 
rison as  follows : 

"  If  I  was  to  be  called  upon  to  draw  a  picture  of  the 
times  and  of  Men,  from  what  I  have  seen,  and  heard, 
and  in  part  know,  I  should  in  one  word  say  that  idle- 
ness, dissipation  and  extravagance  seems  to  have  laid 
fast  hold  of  most  of  them. — That  speculation — pecula- 
tion— and  an  insatiable  thirst  for  riches  seems  to  have 
got  the  better  of  every  other  consideration  and  almost 
of  every  order  of  Men. — That  party  disputes  and 
personal  quarrels  are  the  great  business  of  the  day 
whilst  the  momentous  concerns  of  an  empire — a  great 
and  accumulated  debt — ruined  finances — depreciated 
money — and  want  of  credit  (which  in  their  conse- 
quences is  the  want  of  everything)  are  but  secondary 
considerations  and  postponed  from  day  to  day — from 
week  to  week  as  if  our  affairs  wear  the  most  prom- 
ising aspect — after  drawing  this  picture,  which  from 
my  Soul  I  believe  to  be  a  true  one,  I  need  not  repeat 
to  you  that  I  am  alarmed  and  wish  to  see  my  Country- 
men roused." 

The  endless  circling  around  New  York  and  Phila- 
delphia strikes  almost  a  humorous  chord  in  the 
heart  of  the  leader  at  this  time,  when  he  writes  to 
General  Nelson: 

"  It  is  not  a  little  pleasing,  nor  less  wonderful  to 
contemplate,  that  after  two  years'  manoeuvring  and 
undergoing  the  strangest  vicissitudes,  that  perhaps 


On  to  Yorktown  323 

ever  attended  any  one  contest  since  the  creation,  both 
armies  are  brought  back  to  the  very  point  they  set 
out  from,  and  that  which  was  the  offending  party  in 
the  beginning  is  now  reduced  to  the  use  of  the  spade 
and  pickaxe  for  defence." 

But  the  situation  on  the  whole,  when  the  army 
went  into  winter  quarters  at  Middlebrook  and  Eliza- 
bethtown  (1779),  was  rather  encouraging  than 
otherwise. 

Called  to  Philadelphia  to  confer  with  Congress 
and  its  War  Commission,  on  plans  of  campaign  for 
the  ensuing  spring  and  summer,  Washington,  so  far 
from  being  found  the  solemn  and  unapproachable 
chief,  is  present  now  and  then  at  balls  and  festivities 
given  in  his  honour,  casts  off  care,  dances  three 
hours  hand-running  with  the  wife  of  General  Greene, 
and  joins  willingly  in  the  entertainments  offered  to 
M.  Gerard,  the  French  envoy,  and  other  distin- 
guished foreigners. 

General  Knox,  in  a  letter  of  February  28th,  wrote 
to  his  brother : 

"  We  had  at  the  Park  (of  artillery)  on  the  i8th  a 
most  genteel  entertainment  given  by  self  and  officers. 
Everybody  allows  it  to  be  the  first  of  the  kind  ever 
exhibited  in  this  State  at  least.  We  had  above  seventy 
ladies,  all  of  the  first  ton  in  the  State,  and  between 
three  and  four  hundred  gentlemen.  We  danced  all 
night — an  elegant  room,  the  illuminating,  fireworks, 
etc.,  were  more  than  pretty.  It  was  to  celebrate  the 
alliance  between  France  and  America." 


324  George  Washington 

Franklin's  daughter  writes  to  her  father: 

"  I  have  lately  been  several  times  invited  abroad 
with  the  General  and  Mrs.  Washington.  He  always 
inquires  after  you  in  the  most  affectionate  manner, 
and  speaks  of  you  highly.  We  danced  at  Mrs.  Pow- 
ell's your  birth-day  [January  6,  (O.  S.)  1706],  or 
night  I  should  say,  in  company  together,  and  he  told 
me  it  was  the  anniversary  of  his  marriage  [January  6, 
(N.  S.)  1759]  ;  it  was  just  twenty  years  that  night." 

The  Hudson  Highlands,  White  Plains,  West 
Point,  and  other  defensible  spots  on  the  route  were 
eagerly  inspected  by  the  General  and  his  engineers, 
and  eligible  points  were  rapidly  selected  for  fortifi- 
cations. The  feeble  operations  of  the  French  fleet 
under  an  incompetent  leader,  its  dispersion  by  a 
storm  at  Newport,  and  its  inability  to  get  into  New 
York  Harbour  with  its  eighteen  ships  and  four  thou- 
sand men,  disappointed  the  general  expectation  in 
the  efficiency  of  French  aid  at  this  time,  and  caused 
distrust  and  fear. 

But  the  months  of  1779,  wonderfully  mild  as 
contrasted  with  those  of  1778,  slipped  away  favour- 
ably for  the  patriots :  they  were  filled  with  guerilla 
skirmishes,  feints  on  the  part  of  Lord  Howe's  fleet 
at  New  York,  and  inconsequent  manoeuvres  here 
and  there  on  the  Hudson  on  the  part  of  both  armies. 

Time  wore  on. 

A  war  of  outrage  now  began  to  be  waged  against 
defenceless  towns  and  villages  in  Virginia,  Rhode 
Island,  and  Connecticut ;  churches,  school-houses,  un- 
defended homes  of  women  and  children  were  scathed 


On  to  Yorktown  325 

by  fire,  and  a  deep  and  incurable  resentment  burned 
in  the  blood  of  the  patriots  as  they  heard  of  these 
outrages,  far  away  in  the  distant  camps. 

To  add  to  the  horrors  of  this  moment,  the  Indians 
of  the  Six  Nations  and  of  the  Mingo  and  Ohio 
tribes  began  a  series  of  atrocities  which  Campbell,  in 
his  Gertrude  of  Wyoming,  has  immortalised  in  most 
musical  verse.  Worn  out  with  these  massacres, 
Washington  despatched  General  Sullivan  with  six- 
teen hundred  men  against  the  Iroquois,  and  the  fair 
waters  of  the  Susquehanna  and  the  lovely  vale  of 
the  Genesee  soon  bespoke  his  avenging  arm. 

The  year  1780  opened  with  the  Americans  in  win- 
ter quarters,  partly  at  West  Point,  partly  at  Morris- 
town,  New  Jersey,  where  cruel  sufferings,  in 
consequence  of  deep  snows  and  a  lack  of  bread  and 
meat,  reduced  the  riotous  soldiers  almost  to  rebellion. 

The  new  French  Minister,  M.  Luzerne  (who  had 
succeeded  M.  Gerard),  wrote  to  the  Count  de  Ver- 
gennes : 

"  I  have  had  many  conversations  with  General 
Washington,  some  of  which  have  continued  for  three 
hours.  It  is  impossible  for  me  briefly  to  communicate 
the  fund  of  intelligence,  which  I  have  derived  from 
him,  but  I  shall  do  it  in  my  letters  as  occasions  shall 
present  themselves.  I  will  now  say  only,  that  I  have 
formed  as  high  an  opinion  of  the  powers  of  his  mind, 
his  moderation,  his  patriotism,  and  his  virtues,  as  I 
had  before  from  common  report  conceived  of  his  mil- 
itary talents  and  of  the  incalculable  services  he  has 
rendered  to  his  country." 


326  George  Washington 

A  stream  of  light  came  over  sea  with  the  Marquis 
de  LaFayette  who,  after  a  considerable  absence 
abroad,  now  returned  with  the  joyful  intelligence 
that  Count  Rochambeau,  with  a  large  French  fleet 
and  six  thousand  men,  were  about  to  arrive  at  New- 
port in  aid  of  the  Americans. 

The  puzzling  purpose  of  the  British  became  mani- 
fest towards  the  end  of  the  year  when,  falling  into 
another  of  those  strange  blunders  so  characteristic 
of  this  war,  they  resolved  on  a  Southern  campaign, 
hundreds  of  miles  away  from  their  permanent  base 
at  New  York,  and  sent  7500  men  under  Admiral 
Arbuthnot,  Sir  Henry  Clinton,  and  Lord  Cornwallis, 
in  December,  1779,  and  April,  1780,  to  capture 
Charleston. 

Naturally,  this  poor  little  town  fell  into  the  power 
of  the  large  attacking  force :  General  Lincoln  sur- 
rendered it;  but  it  proved  one  of  those  ambiguous 
gifts  of  which  the  War  for  Independence  reveals 
many :  the  possession  of  it  simply  beguiled  the  foe 
into  the  conceit  that  a  deadly  blow  had  been  inflicted, 
and  that  the  dragon  had  been  cut  in  two.  Boston, 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  Savannah,  Charleston, 
successively  suffered  decapitation  at  the  hands  of 
the  invader — and  yet  the  hydra  was  as  many-headed 
as  ever! 

In  fact,  the  fate  of  the  two  Indies  is  the  most 
marvellous  object-lesson  in  all  English  history.  The 
Empire  of  the  East,  sovereign  in  its  contempt  for 
the  West,  rigid  in  its  forms,  rotten  in  civilisation, 
enervated  to  the  last  degree  by  fantastic  forms  of 


On  to  Yorktown  327 

luxury,  fell  an  easy  prey  to  the  powerful  East  India 
Company  which,  in  1600,  began  its  singular  career 
there,  to  end  with  the  sensational  presence  and  ex- 
ploits of  Lord  Clive  and  Warren  Hastings.  The 
gorgeous  fabric  of  Indian  monarchy  crumbled  at  a 
touch — "  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  on  " — and 
its  endless  millions  bowed  almost  thankfully  beneath 
an  alien  yoke. 

The  miniature  Empire  of  the  West,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  peopled  by  England's  own  children,  bone 
of  her  bone  and  blood  of  her  blood :  a  handful  of 
hardy  Anglo-Saxons  whose  temper  and  training 
were  the  same  as  those  of  the  invader,  but  a  temper 
and  training  instinct  with  force  and  pride,  invincible 
in  character,  intelligent  beyond  the  conception  of 
contemporaries,  filled  with  a  conscience  that  burnt 
like  a  flame,  and  directed  by  a  purpose  to  do  or  die 
in  the  cause  of  right. 

England  did  not  know  her  own  children,  or  she 
would  never  have  ventured  on  this  war. 

The  weakness  of  Congress  as  a  federal  body, 
however,  caused  Washington  many  an  anxious  mo- 
ment :  the  danger  of  disintegration  was  all  the  time 
imminent,  and  he  wrote  urgent  letters  on  the  subject. 

In  a  letter  to  Fielding  Lewis  he  says: 

"  I  give  it  decisively  as  my  opinion — that  unless 
the  States  will  content  themselves  with  a  full  and  well- 
chosen  representation  in  Congress  and  vest  that  body 
with  absolute  powers  in  all  matters  relative  to  the 
great  purposes  of  war,  and  of  general  concern  (by 
which  the  States  unitedlv  are  affected,  reserving  to 


328  George  Washing-ton 

themselves  all  matters  of  local  and  internal  polity  for 
the  regulation  of  order  and  good  government)  we  are 
attempting  an  impossibility,  and  very  soon  shall  be- 
come (if  it  is  not  already  the  case)  a  many-headed 
monster — a  heterogeneous  mass — that  never  will  or 
can  steer  to  the  same  point." 

His  "  skeleton  of  an  army,"  as  he  called  it,  hung 
on  the  hills  of  Morristown  and  West  Point  and 
managed,  somehow,  to  hold  body  and  soul  together 
until  the  fields  blossomed  afresh,  and  new  life  was 
infused  into  the  fainting  troops. 

The  bright  hopes  of  the  year,  incident  to  the  ar- 
rival of  the  French  at  Newport,  were  darkened  by 
one  spot  of  the  blackest  treachery — the  treason  of 
Benedict  Arnold. 

This  officer,  physically  the  bravest  of  the  brave, 
beloved  of  Washington,  ambitious  yet  ill-balanced, 
had  risen  by  steady  promotion,  often  interrupted  by 
envy  and  intrigue,  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest, 
and  when  Howe  evacuated  Philadelphia,  became 
military  governor  of  the  city.  Ensconced  in  the 
handsome  mansion  of  William  Penn,  he  was  courted, 
admired,  feted,  feared,  and  soon  began  to  exhibit 
the  ostentation  and  evil  of  his  nature.  Marrying 
at  forty  the  lovely  and  accomplished  loyalist,  Mary 
Shippen  (his  second  wife),  Arnold  began  a  career 
of  extravagance  which  plunged  him  into  debt  and 
into  evil  practices :  he  was  accused,  tried,  and  court- 
martialed,  being  condemned  to  receive  a  reprimand 
from  his  chief.  This  reprimand,  nobly  expressed, 
was  as  follows: 


WASHINGTON  AT  TRENTON,  JANUARY  2,  1777. 
From  the  engraving  by  Daggett  after  the  original  painting  by  Colonel  TrumbulL 


On  to  Yorktown  329 

"  Our  profession  is  the  chastest  of  all.  Even  the 
shadow  of  a  fault  tarnishes  the  lustre  of  our  finest 
achievements.  The  least  inadvertence  may  rob  us  of 
the  public  favor,  so  hard  to  be  acquired.  I  reprimand 
you  for  having  forgotten  that,  in  proportion  as  you 
had  rendered  yourself  formidable  to  your  enemies, 
you  should  have  been  guarded  and  temperate  in  your 
deportment  toward  your  fellow  -  citizens.  Exhibit 
anew  those  noble  qualities  which  have  placed  you  on 
the  list  of  our  most  valued  commanders.  I  will  fur- 
nish you,  as  far  as  it  may  be  in  my  power,  with  op- 
portunities of  regaining  the  esteem  of  your  country." 

Proud  as  Lucifer,  Arnold  was  stung  to  the  quick : 
"  revenge,  avarice,  debt,"  writes  a  well-known  spe- 
cialist, were  the  key-notes  of  his  career ;  "  money 
was  his  God,"  exclaimed  a  contemporary,  who  knew 
him  well.  A  tragic  thought  took  possession  of  his 
mind  and  heart,  and  burnt  there  till  it  consumed  his 
whole  finer  nature. 

Mrs.  Arnold  had  kept  up  correspondence  with  a 
handsome  and  gallant  young  officer,  named  Andre, 
who,  during  the  British  occupation  of  Philadelphia, 
had  been  prominent  in  social  matters  there,  and  had 
made  himself  a  favourite  by  his  noble  and  winning 
manners. 

Through  him,  Arnold  fell  into  treacherous  cor- 
respondence with  Howe,  and  securing  from  Wash- 
ington command  of  the  American  fortifications  at 
West  Point,  promised  to  deliver  them  over  to  the 
British  General  for  fifteen  thousand  dollars,  and  the 
rank  of  brigadier-general  in  the  English  Army. 


33°  George  Washington 

The  following  brief  note,  from  his  Orderly  Book, 
reveals  Washington's  position  in  the  tragedy: 

"  At  the  '  Robinson  House.' 

"  I  arrived  here  yesterday,  on  my  return  from  an 
interview  with  the  French  general  and  admiral,  and 
have  been  witness  to  a  scene  of  treason,  as  shocking 
as  it  was  unexpected.  General  Arnold,  from  every 
circumstance,  had  entered  into  a  plot  for  sacrificing 
West  Point.  He  had  an  interview  with  Major  Andre, 
the  British  adjutant-general,  last  week  at  Joshua  H. 
Smith's  where  the  plan  was  concerted.  By  an  ex- 
traordinary concurrence  of  incidents  Andre  was  taken 
while  on  his  return,  with  several  papers  in  Arnold's 
hand-writing,  that  proved  the  treason.  The  latter 
unluckily  got  notice  of  it  before  I  did,  went  imme- 
diately down  the  river,  got  on  board  the  Vulture, 
which  brought  up  Andre,  and  proceeded  to  New 
York." 

The  papers  incriminating  Arnold  were  found  in 
the  boot  of  Major  Andre  who,  under  the  name  of 
"  Anderson,"  was  captured  by  three  Americans  as 
he  travelled,  late  in  September,  from  West  Point  to 
New  York,  on  his  way  to  announce  Arnold's  inten- 
tion of  delivering  up  the  fortress.  Almost  at  the 
moment  of  the  treachery,  the  Commander-in-chief 
unexpectedly  reached  West  Point  without  a  sus- 
picion of  the  plot ;  but  Arnold,  leaving  his  distressed 
wife  in  a  swoon,  had  already  escaped  to  the  British 
ship  Vulture  lying  down  the  river,  and  reached  New 
York  in  safety. 

Major  Andre,   so  full  of  talents,  learning,   and 


On  to  Yorktown  331 

accomplishments,  adjutant-general  in  his  own  army, 
daring  as  a  soldier  well  could  be,  high-minded  as  the 
noble  American,  Nathan  Hale  (who  suffered  the 
same  death  a  few  months  before),  was  gibbeted  as 
a  spy,  Oct.  2,  1780,  yet,  nevertheless,  held  in  equal 
honour  by  both  nations. 

Tarrytown  and  Westminster  Abbey  record  his  ca- 
reer in  eloquent  monuments  to  his  memory. 

Arnold's  obscure  and  pathetic  death  in  London, 
1 80 1,  calling  on  his  attendants  to  array  him  in  his 
uniform  as  an  American  General,  and  throw  over 
him  the  American  flag, — an  end  pregnant  with  pas- 
sion and  remorse, — fitly  closes  the  sorrowful  drama 
of  his  life. 

And  this  treachery  was  committed  against  a 
bosom  friend,  of  whom  the  Marquis  de  Chastellux 
wrote  about  this  time : 

"  It  is  not  my  intention  to  exaggerate.  I  wish  only 
to  express  the  impression  General  Washington  has 
left  on  my  mind;  the  idea  of  a  perfect  whole,  that 
cannot  be  the  produce  of  enthusiasm,  which  rather 
would  reject  it,  since  the  effect  of  proportion  is  to 
diminish  the  idea  of  greatness.  Brave  without  temer- 
ity, laborious  without  ambition,  generous  without 
prodigality,  noble  without  pride,  virtuous  without 
severity ;  he  seems  always  to  have  confined  himself 
within  those  limits,  where  the  virtues,  by  cloathing 
themselves  in  more  lively,  but  more  changeable  and 
doubtful  colours,  may  be  mistaken  for  faults.  This  is 
the  seventh  year  that  he  has  commanded  the  army, 
and  that  he  has  obeyed  Congress;  more  need  not  be 


33 2  George  Washington 

said,  especially  in  America,  where  they  know  how  to 
appreciate  all  the  merit  contained  in  this  simple  fact. 
Let  it  be  repeated  that  Conde  was  intrepid,  Turenne 
prudent,  Eugene  adroit,  Catinat  disinterested.  It  is 
not  thus  that  Washington  will  be  characterized.  It 
will  be  said  of  him,  at  the  end  of  a  long  civil  war,  he 
had  nothing  with  which  he  could  reproach  himself. 
...  In  speaking  of  this  perfect  whole  of  which  Gen- 
eral Washington  furnishes  the  idea,  I  have  not  ex- 
cluded exterior  form.  His  stature  is  noble  and  lofty, 
he  is  well  made,  and  exactly  proportioned ;  his  phy- 
siognomy mild  and  agreeable,  but  such  as  to  render 
it  impossible  to  speak  particularly  of  any  of  his  fea- 
tures, so  that  in  quitting  him,  you  have  only  the  rec- 
ollection of  a  fine  face." 

Thacher,  in  his  Military  Journal,  says  of  the  exe- 
cution of  Andre : 

"  October  2d. — Major  Andre  is  no  more  among  the 
living.  I  have  just  witnessed  his  exit.  It  was  a  trag- 
ical scene  of  the  deepest  interest.  During  his  con- 
finement and  trial,  he  exhibited  those  proud  and 
elevated  sensibilities  which  designate  greatness  and 
dignity  of  mind.  Not  a  murmur  or  a  sigh  ever 
escaped  him,  and  the  civilities  and  attentions  bestowed 
on  him  were  politely  acknowledged.  .  .  .  The  fatal 
hour  having  arrived,  a  large  detachment  of  troops 
was  paraded,  and  an  immense  concourse  of  people  as- 
sembled ;  almost  all  our  general  and  field  officers,  ex- 
cepting his  Excellency  and  his  staff,  were  present  on 
horseback;  melancholy  and  gloom  pervaded  all  ranks, 
and  the  scene  was  affectingly  awful." 

When  such  noble  spirits  as  Greene,  LaFayette, 


On  to  Yorktown  333 

Steuben,  and  eleven  others  of  the  highest  integrity, 
pronounced  the  judgment  of  death  as  a  spy  on 
Andre,  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  his  technical  guilt. 

While  these  clouds  were  hovering  so  darkly  over 
the  Hudson,  and  Washington's  heart  was  wrung 
with  exquisite  sorrow  over  the  downfall  of  Arnold, 
affairs  in  the  South  were  assuming  a  more  promis- 
ing aspect, — were  indeed  shaping  themselves  towards 
Yorktown.  The  unfortunate  Lincoln  had  cooped 
himself  up  in  Charleston,  only  to  fall  into  the  hands 
of  an  overwhelming  enemy, — a  mistake  exactly  par- 
alleled, fourteen  months  later,  on  the  waters  of  the 
muddy  York,  by  Cornwallis  himself. 

By  an  act  of  singular  imprudence,  Congress  had 
erected  an  independent  department  in  the  Carolinas 
and  Georgia,  and  had  given  the  command  of  it  to 
the  heedless  and  headless  Gates,  still  dazzling  its 
purblind  eyes  with  the  glamour  of  the  Burgoyne 
disaster.  With  this  disaster,  Gates  had  infinitely 
less  to  do  than  Arnold,  Schuyler,  or  the  heroic 
Morgan,  whom  the  British  commander  compli- 
mented, says  Lodge,  with  having  the  finest  regiment 
of  riflemen  in  the  world. 

But  Congress  thought  otherwise :  Morgan, 
shamefully  mistreated,  had  gone  sulking  to  his  Vir- 
ginia plantation;  Arnold,  treated  in  the  same  way, 
had  turned  traitor ;  and  Gates — became  the  "  hero  " 
of  a  crushing  defeat  by  Cornwallis,  at  Camden,  in 
August,  1781,  not  even  knowing  how  many  men  he 
had  in  his  own  army. 

This  rival  of  Washington  was  of  the  calibre  of 


334  George  Washington 

those  omniscient  Gauls  who,  in  187071,  marched 
gaily  with  mitrailleuses  and  chassepots  straight  into 
the  mouth  of  German  "  Krupps,"  without  ever  in- 
quiring the  road  "  a  Berlin." 

Three  weeks  after  the  fall  of  Charleston,  Sir 
Henry  Clinton  wrote  home  to  the  Ministry : 

"  '  I  may  venture  to  assert  that  there  are  few  men 
in  South  Carolina  who  are  not  either  our  prisoners  or 
in  arms  with  us.'  The  assertion  was  not  extravagant, 
for  the  State  seemed  to  lie  prostrate  at  the  foot  of  its 
conqueror.  Yet,  although  the  native  loyalists  were 
numerous  and  active,  the  submission  of  the  mass  of 
the  people  was  more  apparent  than  real.  Many  of 
them,  stunned  by  the  surrender  of  the  capital,  and 
well  aware  that  the  only  American  army  in  the  State 
had  ceased  to  exist,  were  ready  to  yield  and  accept 
British  rule  in  silence.  If  they  had  been  properly  and 
judiciously  dealt  with,  they  could  have  easily  been 
kept  quiet ;  and  if  not  loyal,  they  would  at  least  have 
been  neutral.  But  the  policy  of  the  British  Com- 
manders made  this  impossible.  To  the  people  of  South 
Carolina,  brave,  high-spirited  and  proud,  they  offered 
only  the  choice  between  death,  confiscation,  and  ruin 
on  the  one  side,  and  active  service  in  the  British  army 
on  the  other.  Thus  forced  to  the  wall,  the  South 
Carolinian  who  was  not  a  convinced  loyalist  quickly 
determined  that,  if  he  must  fight  for  his  life  in  any 
event,  he  would  do  his  fighting  on  the  side  of  his 
country.  Major  James,  for  example,  went  into  George- 
town to  offer,  in  behalf  of  himself  and  his  neighbors, 
to  remain  neutral.  The  usual  choice  was  brutally 
offered  him  by  the  Captain  in  command.  James  re- 


On  to  Yorktown  335 

plied  that  he  could  not  accept  such  conditions;  and 
the  gallant  captain  thereupon  said  that  James  was  a 
'  damned  rebel,'  and  that  he  would  have  him  hanged. 
Then,  with  a  chair,  James  knocked  down  the  repre- 
sentative of  Great  Britain,  left  him  senseless,  and 
went  off  with  his  four  brothers  to  take  up  arms 
against  England  and  fight  her  to  the  death.  In  one 
form  or  another,  barring  perhaps  the  little  incident  of 
the  chair,  James  and  his  brothers  were  typical.  The 
people  began  to  rise  in  all  directions,  take  their  arms 
and  withdraw  to  the  woods  and  swamps,  thence  to 
wage  a  relentless,  if  desultory,  warfare  against  their 
invaders."  1 

As  to  Gates: 

"  Either  an  abounding  charity  or  a  love  of  paradox 
has  tempted  some  recent  writers  to  say  that  Gates  has 
been  too  harshly  judged,  but  it  is  difficult  to  discover 
any  error  he  could  have  committed  which  he  did  not 
commit.  He  came  down  to  form  an  army,  where  none 
existed,  around  a  nucleus  of  regular  troops,  not  to  take 
command  of  one  already  organized.  He  should  not 
have  fought  until  he  had  made  his  army,  disciplined 
it,  marched  and  manoeuvred  with  it,  and  tested  it  in 
some  small  actions.  Instead  of  doing  this  he  took  the 
Continentals  and  marched  straight  for  the  main  Brit- 
ish army,  picking  up  reinforcements  of  untried,  un- 
disciplined militia  on  the  way.  Arriving  within  strik- 
ing distance  of  the  enemy,  he  actually  did  not  know 
how  many  men  he  had,  and  sent  off  eight  hundred  of 
his  best  troops,  the  only  militia  apparently  who  had 
seen  fighting.  When  he  stumbled  upon  the  enemy  he 

1  Lodge,  The  Story  of  the  Revolution,  p.  367. 


336  George  Washington 

put  his  poorest  troops  in  front,  without,  apparently, 
direction  or  support,  and  first  of  all  the  militia  who 
had  been  with  him  only  twenty-four  hours.  Colonel 
Stevens  of  Virginia,  a  brave  man,  said  that  the  rout 
was  due  to  the  '  damned  cowardly  behavior  of  the 
militia/  and  as  he  commanded  one  division  of  them 
he  probably  knew  what  he  was  saying.  But  to  lay 
the  fault  on  the  militia  is  begging  the  question.  The 
unsteadiness  of  perfectly  green  troops  in  the  field  is 
well  known,  and  these  men  ought  not  to  have  been 
brought  into  action  against  regulars  at  all  at  that  mo- 
ment— least  of  all  should  they  have  been  put  in  the 
van  to  resist  the  onset  of  seasoned  veterans  without 
instructions  or  apparent  support.  The  defeat  of  Cam- 
den  was  due  to  bad  generalship,  and  resulted  in  the 
complete  dispersion  of  the  militia,  and  the  sacrifice 
and  slaughter  of  the  hard-fighting  Continentals.  Sum- 
ter  even  was  carried  down  in  the  wreck.  He  had  cut 
off  the  convoy  and  baggage  with  perfect  success,  but 
the  victory  at  Camden  set  the  British  free  to  pursue 
him.  He  eluded  Cornwallis,  but,  encumbered  and 
delayed  by  his  prize,  he  was  overtaken  and  surprised 
by  Tarleton.  Half  his  force  was  killed,  wounded,  or 
made  prisoners ;  the  rest  were  scattered,  and  it  is 
said  that  Sumter,  a  few  days  later,  rode  into  Char- 
lotte alone,  without  a  saddle  and  hatless,  to  begin  all 
over  again  the  work  of  forming  a  regiment,  which  he 
performed  as  usual  with  great  energy  and  success."  x 

In  fact,  there  was  a  singular  parallelism  between 
the  causes  which  led  to  Burgoyne's  disaster  at  Sara- 
toga, and  the  causes  which  led  Cornwallis  into  the 

1  Lodge,  The  Story  of  the  Re-volution,  p.  378. 


THE   MARQUIS  DE  LAFAYETTE. 
From  a  French  print,  1781. 


On  to  Yorktown  337 

trap  at  Yorktown.  The  Carolinas,  like  Western 
New  York  and  the  Canadian  frontier,  were  full  of 
disloyal  men  who  vacillated,  clung  alternately  to 
the  one  side  or  the  other,  trimmed  their  sails  to 
every  breeze,  and  made  up  a  population  of  Laodi- 
ceans  never  really  hot  for  anything.  Vast  woods 
extended  everywhere;  great  rivers  cleft  the  forests 
here  and  there;  swamps  and  morasses,  jungles  of 
cane  and  dwarf  palmetto,  tangles  of  vine  and  lush 
vegetation  hid  a  lurking  foe  when  shelter  was 
needed;  mountains  covered  with  luxuriant  Southern 
growths  towered  toward  the  West;  and  back  and 
best  of  all,  their  woods  and  mountains  grew  one 
striking  crop :  a  clan  of  half-wild,  half-civilised, 
wholly  true-hearted  men — "  the  Rough  Riders  of 
the  Revolution  " — who,  springing  up  as  if  by  magic, 
precisely  like  the  splendid  yeomanry  of  New  Eng- 
land round  Lake  Champlain,  gathered  in  a  web 
about  Ferguson,  Rawdon,  Tarleton,  and  Cornwallis, 
harrassed,  entangled,  finally  crushed  them. 
Of  these  men  Lodge  finely  says : 

"  They  gathered  in  an  open  grove,  and,  leaning  on 
their  rifles,  these  backwoodsmen  and  wild  Indian 
fighters  bowed  their  heads  and  listened  in  silence  to 
the  preacher  who  blessed  them  and  called  upon  them 
to  do  battle  and  smite  the  foe  with  the  sword  of  the 
Lord  and  Gideon. 

"  Then  they  set  out,  a  strange-looking  army,  clad 
in  buckskin  shirts  and  fringed  leggings,  without  a 
tent,  a  bayonet  or  any  baggage,  and  with  hardly  a 
sword  among  the  officers.  But  every  man  had  a  rifle, 


338  George  Washington 

a  knife,  and  a  tomahawk,  and  they  were  all  mounted 
on  wiry  horses.  Discipline  in  the  usual  military  sense 
was  unknown,  and  yet  they  were  no  ordinary  militia. 
Every  man  was  a  fighter,  bred  in  Indian  wars,  who 
had  passed  his  life  with  horse  and  rifle,  encompassed 
by  perils.  They  were  a  formidable  body  of  men — 
hardy,  bold  to  recklessness,  and  swift  of  movement. 
They  pushed  on  rapidly  over  the  high  tableland  cov- 
ered with  snow,  and  then  down  the  ravines  and  gorges 
— rough  riding,  where  there  was  hardly  a  trail — until, 
on  the  29th,  they  reached  the  pleasant  open  lowlands 
near  the  North  Forks  of  the  Catawba."  x 

The  mettle  of  such  men  under  such  commanders 
as  Greene  (appointed  to  supersede  Gates),  Marion, 
Sumter,  Steuben,  "  Light  Horse  "  Harry  Lee,  Se- 
vier,  Shelby,  Campbell,  and  William  Washington, 
soon  showed  itself  at  King's  Mountain  (Oct.  8th) 
and  Cowpens  (January  17,  1781),  where  Campbell, 
Morgan,  and  their  "  Back  Water  "  mountaineers  in- 
flicted deadly  blows  on  Ferguson  and  Tarleton,  all 
but  annihilating  the  flower  of  two  of  Cornwallis's 
armies. 

When  it  came  to  a  drawn  battle  at  Guilford  Court 
House  between  Cornwallis  and  Greene,  Greene  to 
the  outward  eye  was  defeated,  but  it  was  one  of 
those  defeats  which  shatter  victorious  armies  and 
lead  to  unforeseen  consequences.  The  barbarities 
of  Tarleton  in  hanging,  burning,  and  plundering 
indiscriminately,  now  roused  the  fury  of  even  so- 
called  "  loyalists  " :  the  whole  South  rose  as  one 

1  Lodge,  The  Story  of  the  Revolution,  p.  382. 


On  to  Yorktown  339 

man,  threw  sympathy  to  the  winds,  and  multiplied 
their  favourite  guerrilla  warfare  into  a  tormenting 
and,  finally,  intolerable  vexation  to  the  British. 
Cornwallis  recoiled,  shrivelled  up,  fled  before  it  as 
before  swarms  of  poisonous  mosquitoes  whose  sting 
was  death,  and  who  never  left  off  their  torment  day 
or  night. 

The  South  had  had  more  than  three  years'  rest, 
since  the  gallant  Moultrie  had  repulsed  the  British 
fleet  off  Charleston;  and  now,  full  of  fresh  force 
and  energy,  it  sprang  elastically  to  the  front,  in  aid 
of  the  plans  of  Washington  and  Greene,  to  rid  the 
land  of  the  invader.  The  multitude  of  generals, 
colonels,  and  majors,  bred  by  the  Revolutionary 
War,  was  a  direct  exemplification  of  the  saying  that, 
at  that  time,  "  in  the  knapsack  of  every  private  lay 
hidden  the  baton  of  a  marshal."  It  was  the  era  of 
self-made,  self-taught,  self-trained  men  whose  latent 
abilities,  nourished  by  every  possible  opportunity, 
burst  brightly  forth  in  the  glow  and  friction  of  the 
times,  and  swept  them  forcefully  to  the  front. 

Of  such  men  the  Southern  army  was  full,  from 
those  "  swamp  foxes  "  of  the  Revolution,  Marion, 
Sumter,  and  Lee,  to  the  bold  mountain  colonels  who 
surrounded  and  slew  Ferguson  at  King's  Mountain, 
and  made  a  real  slaughter-pen  for  Tarleton  at 
Cowpens. 

When  Greene,  the  Fabius  of  the  South,  exactly 
trained  in  the  tactics  of  Washington,  threw  himself 
with  such  men  like  a  wedge  between  Cornwallis  and 
Lord  Rawdon,  the  end  was  not  far  to  see.  Even  the 


34O  George  Washington 

"  creeping  paralysis  and  dry  rot  "  that  overspread 
Congress,  and  benumbed  its  members  at  this  mo- 
ment, could  not  seriously  impede  the  catastrophe 
to  which  all  things,  thanks  to  the  mighty  help  of 
France,  were  now  tending  as  surely  as  in  some  great 
tragedy  of  ^Eschylus  or  Corneille.  "  Sea  power  and 
money,"  cried  Washington,  "  are  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  our  success  " ;  and  both  came  in  the  very 
nick  of  time,  when  America  had  forgotten  the  very 
gleam  of  gold  in  these  rotten  paper  times.  The  hard 
cash  and  hard  common  sense  of  Robert  Morris  and 
Benjamin  Franklin  wrought  a  wondrous  change 
in  the  time ;  the  former  by  constant  loans  on  his  per- 
sonal credit,  the  latter  by  an  advance  of  6,000,000 
livres  ($1,800,000)  from  France,  nearly  half  of 
which  arrived  at  this  critical  moment,  when  even 
Washington  thought  affairs  more  desperate  than 
in  the  days  of  Valley  Forge.  A  fine  French  fleet 
with  three  thousand  men  lay  at  Newport  under  De 
Barras  and  Count  de  Rochambeau,  ready  to  co- 
operate with  Washington. 

In  June,  the  allied  armies  began  to  co-operate, 
sweep  swiftly  and  silently  around  New  York,  and, 
on  receipt  of  an  all-important  note  from  Count  de 
Grasse  stating  that  he  had  left  the  West  Indies  for 
Chesapeake  Bay,  start  under  LaFayette  and  Wash- 
ington for  Virginia,  three  hundred  miles  away. 

Cornwallis  now  either  had  to  follow  the  manoeu- 
vring Greene  deep  down  in  the  Carolinas,  and 
abandon  Virginia,  or  he  had  to  wheel,  march  swiftly 
from  Wilmington,  join  Arnold  in  the  Old  Domin- 


On  to  Yorktown  341 

ion,  and  sweep  that  commonwealth  with  fire  and 
sword.  Drawn  to  his  doom  by  a  strange  magnetism, 
he  chose  the  Virginia  campaign. 

Singularly  spared  the  horrors  of  war  since  Dun- 
more  had  disappeared,  "  the  most  antient  and  loyal 
colony  of  Virginia,"  rich  and  prosperous,  had  been 
one  of  the  granaries  of  the  Revolutionary  Army. 
Strangely  enough,  when  a  British  gunboat  sailed  up 
the  Potomac,  and  was  supplied  with  provisions  by 
the  timid  overseer,  Lund  Washington,  Mount  Ver- 
non  escaped  destruction,  with  this  historic  rebuke 
from  the  General  to  his  kinsman : 

"  At  New  Windsor,  Monday,  April  30. 
"  I  am  very  sorry  of  your  loss.  I  am  a  little  sorry  to 
hear  of  my  own ;  but  that  which  gives  me  most  concern 
is,  that  you  should  go  on  board  the  enemy's  vessels,  and 
furnish  them  with  refreshments.  It  would  have  been  a 
less  painful  circumstance  to  me  to  have  heard,  that  in 
consequence  of  your  non-compliance  with  their  request, 
they  had  burnt  my  house  and  laid  the  plantation  in 
ruins.  You  ought  to  have  considered  yourself  as  my 
representative,  and  should  have  reflected  on  the  bad 
example  of  communicating  with  the  enemy,  and 
making  a  voluntary  offer  of  refreshments  to  them  with 
a  view  to  prevent  a  conflagration." 

Here,  where  British  rule  in  America  had  begun, 
British  rule  in  America  was  to  end  for  ever. 

The  minor  incidents  of  Tarleton's  raid  on  Char- 
lottesville,  when  Jefferson,  then  Governor,  and  the 
Legislature  narrowly  escaped  capture,  of  Arnold's 
burning  of  Richmond,  and  his  transfer  to  other 


342  George  Washington 

scenes  of  butchery  and  plunder  in  Connecticut,  and 
of  the  occupation  of  Williamsburg  and  the  lower 
James,  may  be  passed  over,  in  view  of  the  great 
fact  that  on  August  ist,  Cornwallis  reached  York- 
town.  August  Qth,  he  had  strongly  intrenched  him- 
self there  in  apparently  impregnable  fortifications, 
and  was  waiting  for  the  British  fleet  to  attack  and 
disperse  the  ships  of  De  Grasse,  already  whitening 
the  Chesapeake. 

One  precious  glimpse  at  Mount  Vernon,  the  first 
in  many  years,  and  Washington  was  off  for  Wil- 
liamsburg and  Yorktown,  accompanied  by  his  brave 
generals  and  sixteen  thousand  troops  thirsting  for 
their  game. 

It  was  an  intensely  anxious  moment. 

Jealousies  had  arisen  between  the  French  ad- 
mirals :  De  Grasse,  having  already  engaged  Arbuth- 
not  and  Rodney  in  several  indecisive  naval  fights, 
was  restive,  reluctant,  insistent  on  leaving.  Yield- 
ing to  Washington's  supplications,  he  at  last  prom- 
ised to  remain  until  November  ist.  Pushing  his 
operations  with  almost  frenzied  speed,  the  American 
General,  zealously  aided  by  LaFayette  and  Alex- 
ander Hamilton  and  the  French  contingent,  strongly 
invested  the  British  positions,  which  were  most 
scientifically  chosen  for  capture.  Washington  him- 
self fired  the  first  gun,  and  from  that  moment  till 
the  1 7th  of  October,  the  flash  and  roar  of  siege 
guns,  brass  cannon,  and  musketry  were  incessant. 

On  the  1 7th,  Cornwallis  called  a  parley.  On  the 
1 8th,  the  articles  of  capitulation  were  signed.  On 


On  to  Yorktown  343 

the  i  Qth,  from  eight  thousand  to  nine  thousand 
royal  troops,  nine  hundred  sailors,  many  ships,  trans- 
ports, and  barges  surrendered,  the  troops  to  General 
Lincoln,  on  behalf  of  the  Americans,  the  ships  and 
sailors  to  Count  De  Grasse.  Cornwallis,  feigning 
illness,  sent  his  sword  to  Washington  by  General 
O'Hara.  To  the  tune  of  "The  World  Turned  Up- 
side Down "  the  brave  British  troops,  who  had 
fought  so  gallantly  all  through  this  trying  campaign, 
marched  through  the  serried  ranks  of  Americans 
and  French  and  stacked  their  arms. 

Of  the  closing  scene  an  eye-witness  wrote : 

"  At  about  twelve  o'clock,  the  combined  army  was 
arranged  and  drawn  up  in  two  lines  extending  more 
than  a  mile  in  length.  The  Americans  were  drawn 
up  in  a  line  on  the  right  side  of  the  road,  and  the 
French  occupied  the  left.  At  the  head  of  the  former 
the  great  American  commander,  mounted  on  his  noble 
courser,  took  his  station,  attended  by  his  aides.  At 
the  head  of  the  latter  was  posted  the  excellent  Count 
Rochambeau  and  his  suite.  ...  It  was  about  two 
o'clock  when  the  captive  army  advanced  through  the 
line  formed  for  their  reception.  Every  eye  was  pre- 
pared to  gaze  on  Lord  Cornwallis,  the  object  of  pe- 
culiar interest  and  solicitude;  but  he  disappointed  our 
anxious  expectations ;  pretending  indisposition,  he 
made  General  O'Hara  his  substitute  as  the  leader  of 
his  army.  This  officer  was  followed  by  the  conquered 
troops  in  a  slow  and  solemn  step,  with  shouldered 
arms,  colors  cased  and  drums  beating  a  British  march. 
Having  arrived  at  the  head  of  the  line,  General 
O'Hara,  elegantly  mounted,  advanced  to  his  Excel- 


344  George  Washington 

lency  the  Commander  in  Chief,  taking  off  his  hat,  and 
apologized  for  the  non-appearance  of  Earl  Cornwallis. 
With  his  usual  dignity  and  politeness  his  Excellency 
pointed  to  Major  General  Lincoln  for  directions,  by 
whom  the  British  army  was  conducted  into  a  spacious 
field  where  it  was  intended  they  should  ground  their 
arms." 

Truly,  the  high  tide  of  the  American  Revolution 
was  reached. 


CHAPTER    XVII 

THE  EBBING  TIDE 

AGAIN  "  a  private  old  man  "  sits,  pen  in  hand, 
babbling  in  his  picturesque  way  to  Sir  Horace 
Mann,  under  date  of  November  29,  1781 : 

"  I  mentioned  on  Tuesday  the  captivity  of  Lord 
Cornwallis  and  his  army,  the  Columbus  who  was  to 
bestow  America  on  us  again.  A  second  army  taken 
in  a  drag-net  is  an  uncommon  event,  and  happened  but 
once  to  the  Romans,  who  sought  adventures  every- 
where^ We  have  not  lowered  our  tone  on  this  new  dis- 
grace, though  I  think  we  shall  talk  no  more  of  insisting 
on  implicit  submission,  which  would  rather  be  a  gas- 
conade than  firmness.  In  fact,  there  is  one  very  un- 
lucky circumstance  already  come  out,  which  must  drive 
every  American,  to  a  man,  from  ever  calling  himself 
our  friend.  By  the  tenth  article  of  the  capitulation, 
Lord  Cornwallis  demanded  that  the  loyal  Americans 
in  his  army  should  not  be  punished.  This  was  flatly 
refused,  and  he  has  left  them  to  be  hanged.  I  doubt 
no  vote  of  Parliament  will  be  able  to  blanch  such  a — 
such  a — I  don't  know  what  the  word  is  for  it ;  he  must 
get  his  uncle  the  Archbishop  to  christen  it ;  there  is  no 
name  for  it  in  any  Pagan  vocabulary.  I  suppose  it 
will  have  a  patent  for  being  called  Necessity.  Well! 
there  ends  another  volume  of  the  American  war.  It 
looks  a  little  as  if  the  history  of  it  would  be  all  we 

345 


346  George  Washington 

should  have  for  it,  except  forty  millions  of  debt,  and 
three  other  wars  that  have  grown  out  of  it,  and  that 
do  not  seem  so  near  to  a  conclusion.  They  say  that 
Monsieur  de  Maurepas,  who  is  dying,  being  told  that 
the  Due  de  Lauzun  had  brought  the  news  of  Lord 
Cornwallis's  surrender,  said,  from  Racine's  Mithridate 
I  think:— 

'  Mes  derniers  regards  ont  vu  fuir  les  Romains.' 

"  How  Lord  Chatham  will  frown  when  they 
meet ! . . . 

"  The  warmth  in  the  House  of  Commons  is  pro- 
digiously rekindled ;  but  Lord  Cornwallis's  fate  has 
cost  the  Administration  no  ground  there.  The  names 
of  most  eclat  in  the  Opposition  are  two  names  to  which 
those  walls  have  been  much  accustomed  at  the  same 
period — Charles  Fox  and  William  Pitt,  second  son  of 
Lord  Chatham.  Eloquence  is  the  only  one  of  our 
brilliant  qualities  that  does  not  seem  to  have  degener- 
ated rapidly — but  I  shall  leave  debates  to  your  nephew, 
now  an  ear-witness :  I  could  only  re-echo  newspapers. 
Is  it  not  another  odd  coincidence  of  events,  that  while 
the  father  Laurens  is  prisoner  to  Lord  Cornwallis  as 
Constable  of  the  Tower,  the  son  Laurens  signed  the 
capitulation  by  which  Lord  Cornwallis  became  prison- 
er? It  is  said  too,  I  don't  know  if  truly,  that  this  ca- 
pitulation and  that  of  Saratoga  were  signed  on  the 
same  anniversary.  These  are  certainly  the  speculations 
of  an  idle  man,"  and  the  more  trifling  when  one  con- 
siders the  moment.  But  alas!  what  would  my  most 
grave  speculations  avail?  From  the  hour  that  fatal 
egg,  the  Stamp  Act,  was  laid,  I  disliked  it  and  all  the 
vipers  hatched  from  it.  I  now  hear  many  curse  it,  who 


The  Ebbing  Tide  347 

fed  the  vermin  with  poisonous  weeds.  Yet  the  guilty 
and  the  innocent  rue  it  equally  hitherto!  I  would  not 
answer  for  what  is  to  come!  Seven  years  of  mis- 
carriages may  sour  the  sweetest  tempers,  and  the  most 
sweetened.  O !  where  is  the  Dove  with  the  olive- 
branch?  Long  ago  I  told  you  that  you  and  I  might 
not  live  to  see  an  end  of  the  American  war.  It  is  very 
near  its  end  indeed  now — its  consequences  are  far 
from  a  conclusion.  In  some  respects,  they  are  com- 
mencing a  new  date,  which  will  reach  far  beyond  us. 
I  desire  not  to  pry  into  that  book  of  futurity."  1 

Horace  Walpole,  always  looking  out  for  coinci- 
dences, could  not  but  be  struck  by  the  almost  exact 
correspondence  of  dates  between  this  surrender  and 
that  of  Burgoyne,  three  years  before,  and  he  mourn- 
fully asserts  that  he  believes  the  two  capitulations 
took  place  on  exactly  the  same  day.  This,  however, 
was  not  strictly  the  case,  though  the  dates  were  very 
close  together. 

A  little  while  after  another  commentator,  mar- 
vellous in  the  force  and  fertility  of  his  pamphlet 
work  on  the  various  aspects  of  the  crises,  the  cele- 
brated Tom  Paine,  wrote  to  Washington,  September 
2,  1782: 

"  I  have  the  honor  of  presenting  you  with  fifty 
copies  of  my  Letter  to  the  Abbe  Raynal  [dated  Phila- 
delphia, August  21,  1782]  for  the  use  of  the  army,  and 
to  repeat  to  you  my  acknowledgments  for  your  friend- 
ship. I  fully  believe  we  have  seen  our  worst  days 
over.  The  spirit  of  the  war,  on  the  part  of  the  enemy, 

1  Letters  of  Horace   Walpole,  vol.   ii,  p.  244. 


348  George  Washington 

is  certainly  on  the  decline,  full  as  much  as  we  think 
for.  I  draw  this  opinion  not  only  from  the  present 
promising  appearances  of  things,  and  the  difficulties 
we  know  the  British  Cabinet  is  in ;  but  I  add  to  it  the 
peculiar  effect  which  certain  periods  of  time  have,  more 
or  less,  upon  all  men.  The  British  have  accustomed 
themselves  to  think  of  seven  years  in  a  manner  differ- 
ent to  other  portions  of  time.  They  acquire  this  partly 
by  habit,  by  reason,  by  religion,  and  by  superstition. 
They  serve  seven  years  apprenticeship — they  elect  their 
parliament  for  seven  years — they  punish  by  seven  years 
transportation,  or  the  duplicate  or  triplicate  of  that 
term — they  let  their  leases  in  the  same  manner,  and 
they  read  that  Jacob  served  seven  years  for  one  wife, 
and  after  that  seven  years  for  another ;  and  this  par- 
ticular period  of  time,  by  a  variety  of  concurrences, 
has  obtained  an  influence  in  their  mind.  They  have 
now  had  seven  years  of  war,  and  are  no  further  on 
the  Continent  than  when  they  began.  The  super- 
stitious and  populous  part  will  therefore  conclude  that 
it  is  not  to  be,  and  the  rational  part  of  them  will  think 
they  have  tried  an  unsuccessful  and  expensive  project 
long  enough,  and  by  these  two  joining  issue  in  the 
same  eventual  opinion,  the  obstinate  part  among  them 
will  be  beaten  out ;  unless,  consistent  with  their  former 
sagacity,  they  should  get  over  the  matter  by  an  act  of 
parliament  '  to  bind  TIME  in  all  cases  whatsoever'  or 
declare  him  a  rebel." 

To    this    curious    prophecy    Washington    almost 
smilingly  replied : 

"  I  have  the  pleasure  to  acknowledge  your  favor,  in- 
forming me  of  your  proposal  to  present  me  with  fifty 


The  Ebbing-  Tide  349 

copies  of  your  last  publication  for  the  amusement  of 
the  army.  For  this  intention  you  have  my  sincere 
thanks,  not  only  on  my  own  account,  but  for  the  plea- 
sure, which  I  doubt  not  the  gentlemen  of  the  army  will 
receive  from  the  perusal  of  your  pamphlets.  Your  ob- 
servations on  the  period  of  seven  years,  as  it  applies 
to  British  minds,  are  ingenious,  and  I  wish  it  may  not 
fail  of  its  effects  in  the  present  instance." 

Up  to  Yorktown,  indeed,  had  for  nearly  seven 
years  steadily  flowed  the  tide  of  revolution,  slowly 
but  steadily  increasing  in  force  and  volume  from 
1775  to  1781,  until  the  high  tide  was  reached  that 
October  morning. 

The  ecstatic  scene  enacted  at  Franklin's  lodgings 
at  Passy,  in  December,  1777,  when  the  news  of 
Burgoyne's  disaster  reached  the  American  envoys 
to  the  French  court,  was  almost  literally  repeated. 

"  It  was  not  until  December  4,  1777,  that  there  broke 
a  great  and  sudden  rift  in  the  solid  cloudiness.  First 
there  came  a  vague  rumor  of  good  news  no  one  at  all 
knew  what ;  then  a  post-chaise  drove  into  Dr.  Frank- 
lin's courtyard,  and  from  it  hastily  alighted  the  young 
messenger,  Jonathan  Loring  Austin,  whom  Congress 
had  sent  express  from  Philadelphia,  and  who  had 
accomplished  an  extraordinarily  rapid  journey.  The 
American  group  of  envoys  and  agents  were  all  there, 
gathered  by  the  mysterious  report  which  had  reached 
them,  and  at  the  sound  of  the  wheels  they  ran  out  into 
the  court-yard  and  eagerly  surrounded  the  chaise.  '  Sir,' 
exclaimed  Franklin, '  is  Philadelphia  taken?  '  '  Yes,  sir,' 
replied  Austin;  and  Franklin  clasped  his  hands  and 
turned  to  reenter  the  house.  But  Austin  cried  that  he 


35°  George  Washington 

bore  greater  news:  that  General  Burgoyne  and  his 
whole  army  were  prisoners  of  war !  At  the  words  the 
glorious  sunshine  burst  forth.  Beaumarchais,  the  ec- 
static, sprang  into  his  carriage  and  drove  madly  for 
the  city  to  spread  the  story ;  but  he  upset  his  vehicle 
and  dislocated  his  arm.  The  envoys  hastily  read  and 
wrote;  in  a  few  hours  Austin  was  again  on  the  road, 
this  time  bound  to  de  Vergennes  at  Versailles,  to  tell 
the  great  tidings.  Soon  all  Paris  got  the  news  and 
burst  into  triumphant  rejoicing  over  the  disaster  to 
England."  x 

"  The  capitulation  to  Mr.  Gates,"  as  the  British 
were  pleased  to  designate  the  surrender  of  Burgoyne, 
brought  immediately,  as  its  richest  fruit,  the  French 
Alliance ;  the  surrender  of  Cornwallis  brought  "  in- 
dependency," as  the  writers  of  that  day  quaintly 
phrased  it. 

The  venerable  philosopher,  so  strongly  intrenched 
in  French  favour,  could  scarcely  contain  himself  for 
the  rapturous  joy  which  the  news  brought  him. 
Long  before,  he  had  cast  a  deep  glance  into  the 
heart  of  English  diplomacy  when  he  laconically  re- 
marked, "  The  British  ministry  are  unable  to  con- 
tinue the  war  and  are  too  proud  to  give  it  up." 

This  was  exactly  true. 

Franklin,  the  patriarch  of  American  envoys,  who 
at  seventy-six  possessed  more  sense  than  any  man 
he  had  ever  seen,  said  John  Jay,  had  been  for  years 
caressing  Vergennes,  the  French  Minister,  and  the 
French  Court  with  the  playful  antics  of  a  septua- 

1  Morse,  Benjamin  Franklin,  p.  267. 


•'• 


JOHN  JAY. 
From  a  steel  engraving. 


The  Ebbing  Tide  351 

genarian  kitten.  His  delicate  tact,  his  mastery  over 
the  conventional  courtesies  of  European  life,  his 
face,  luminous  with  benevolence,  his  scientific  ex- 
ploits, the  quaintness  of  his  Quaker  costume — even 
his  "  Franklin  "  spectacles,  his  wigless  head,  and 
broad-brimmed  hat — had  endeared  him  to  the 
French  and  made  him  a  universal  favourite.  In 
character,  he  was  one  of  those  mellow  mixtures  of 
acid  and  oil  that  baffle  the  psychologist — and  radiate 
optimism  on  the  just  and  the  unjust  alike.  In  his 
correspondence,  the  acid  frequently  eats  up  the  oil; 
in  his  public  utterances,  the  oil  overspreads  the 
tempestuous  sea  and  smooths  every  wrinkle  out  of  it. 
The  ablest  diplomatist  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
as  Bancroft  calls  him,  his  smiling  omniscience  ex- 
tended over  every  quarter  of  the  globe  and  into 
every  corner  of  literature  and  science.  Medals  were 
struck  in  his  honour;  epigrams  were  showered  on 
his  head;  he  was  reputed  to  be  the  only  American 
man-of-the-world  of  his  century.  Bland  philoso- 
pher, acute  inventor,  universal  lover  of  his  kind  as 
he  was,  the  twinkle  of  his  eye,  the  humour  of  his 
tongue,  the  charm  of  his  conversation  and  his  su- 
preme wisdom,  made  him  the  one  man  most  es- 
sential for  America  to  have  abroad  at  this  time — an 
influence,  a  presence,  a  heart,  a  soul  in  the  soulless 
diplomacy  of  the  hour  wherein  the  wily  Vergennes, 
selfish  to  the  core,  thinking  only  of  France,  ruled 
supreme.  Socrates  did  not  more  hopefully  strive  to 
be  a  citizen  of  all  the  world  than  Benjamin  Franklin 
really  was. 


352  George  Washington 

Associated  with  him  in  his  foreign  mission,  were 
two  men  of  great  gifts  and  irreproachable  character, 
John  Adams  of  Massachusetts,  who  succeeded 
Washington  as  second  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  John  Jay,  later,  first  Chief  Justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  his  country;  and,  together,  the 
three,  Argus-eyed  in  the  interests  of  Congress,  be- 
gan to  scan  the  European  heavens,  watch  for  indica- 
tions of  peace,  and  secure  for  their  country  the 
highest  possible  good  to  be  wrenched,  if  need  be, 
from  the  reluctant  cabinets  of  London,  Paris,  and 
Madrid. 

Adams,  stubborn,  suspicious,  blunt,  a  trifle  super- 
cilious, learned  in  the  technical  law,  but  unlearned 
in  the  codes  of  etiquette  and  diplomacy,  a  blurter- 
out  of  unwelcome  truths,  unacquainted  with  the 
niceties  of  European  intercourse  at  the  foreign 
office;  frank,  fearless,  blunderingly  honest,  Adams 
was  of  the  stuff  to  endure  such  insults  as  George 
III.'s  turning  his  back  on  him,  and  yet  surviving  the 
insult;  tolerating  the  insolence  of  Lord  North  and 
Lord  Germaine  and  the  coterie  of  Downing  Street; 
and  bearing  such  scourging  at  the  epistolary 
whipping-post,  as  Vergennes,  from  time  to  time, 
administered  to  him  in  his  bitter  letters  to  Congress. 

Of  these  diplomatic  missionaries,  he  was  the  St. 
Paul  in  that  celebrated  chapter  of  II.  Corinthians, 
in  which  the  penal  autobiography  of  the  Apostle  is 
recorded. 

Deeply  schooled  by  his  residence  at  Madrid  in 
the  crafts  of  Spanish  intrigue,  John  Jay,  who  had 


The  Ebbing  Tide  353 

more  of  Adams  than  of  Franklin  in  his  constitution, 
saw  speedily  into  the  crookedness  of  Vergennes  and 
the  Spanish  family  compact,  viewed  all  things  from 
the  perch  of  sound  international  law,  and  was  vigi- 
lant in  his  watch  over  all  boundary  questions  in 
which  the  subtle  Latin  races  might  claim  an  interest. 

Thus  admirably  represented  abroad,  America 
might  well  await  the  consequences  of  Yorktown  al- 
most with  indifference.  A  year  more,  and  these 
consequences  had  wrought  themselves  out  to  the 
fullest  satisfaction  of  the  patriots. 

The  perfect  joy  of  Yorktown  was,  however, 
marred  for  Washington  by  one  sharp  personal  sor- 
row, the  death  of  his  stepson  John  Parke  Custis, 
who  died  of  camp-fever  shortly  after  the  surrender, 
leaving  a  family  of  small  children  two  of  whom 
Washington  adopted  as  his  own.  It  is  to  one  of 
these  children,  George  Washington  Parke  Custis 
the  orator,  writer,  and  owner  of  Arlington,  that 
history  owes  the  delightful  Recollections  and  Pri- 
vate Memoirs  of  Washington,  from  which  we  have 
freely  quoted  in  the  earlier  part  of  this  biography. 
The  other  was  the  lovely  "  Nellie  "  Custis,  whose 
lustrous  eyes  look  out  of  the  portrait  found  in  the 
Lee  Collection  at  Lexington. 

Washington's  flying  visit  to  his  venerable  mother, 
at  Fredericksburg  near  by,  is  thus  described  by  G. 
W.  P.  Custis,  in  the  curious  Johnsonian  style  of  the 
early  part  of  the  last  century: 

"  Late  in  the  year  1781,  on  the  return  of  the  com- 


354  George  Washington 

bined  armies  from  Yorktown,  the  mother  of  Washing-- 
ton was  permitted  again  to  see  and  embrace  her  il- 
lustrious son,  the  first  time  in  almost  seven  years.  As 
soon  as  he  had  dismounted,  in  the  midst  of  a  numerous 
and  brilliant  suite,  after  reaching  Fredericksburg,  he 
sent  to  apprize  her  of  his  arrival,  and  to  know  when 
it  would  be  her  pleasure  to  receive  him.  And  now, 
reader,  mark  the  force  of  early  education  and  habits, 
and  the  superiority  of  the  Spartan  over  the  Persian 
school,  in  this  interview  of  the  Great  Washington  with 
his  admirable  parent  and  instructor.  No  pageantry  of 
war  proclaimed  his  coming,  no  trumpets  sounded,  no 
banners  waved.  Alone  and  on  foot,  the  general-in- 
chief  of  the  combined  armies  of  France  and  America, 
the  deliverer  of  his  country,  the  hero  of  the  age,  re- 
paired to  pay  his  humble  duty  to  her  whom  he  vener- 
ated as  the  author  of  his  being — the  founder  of  his 
fortune  and  his  fame ;  for  full  well  he  knew  that  the 
matron  was  made  of  sterner  stuff  than  to  be  moved  by 
all  the  pride  that  glory  ever  gave,  and  all  the  pomp 
and  circumstance  of  power. 

"  She  was  alone,  her  aged  hands  employed  in  the 
works  of  domestic  industry,  when  the  good  news  was 
announced,  and  it  was  further  told,  that  the  victor- 
chief  was  in  waiting  at  the  threshold.  She  bid  him  wel- 
come by  a  warm  embrace,  and  by  the  well-remembered 
and  endearing  name  of  George — the  familiar  name  of 
his  childhood ;  she  inquired  as  to  his  health,  remarked 
the  lines  which  mighty  cares  and  many  toils  had  made 
in  his  manly  countenance,  spoke  much  of  old  times  and 
old  friends,  but  of  his  glory  not  one  word. 

"  Meantime,  in  the  village  of  Fredericksburg,  all 
was  joy  and  revelry;  the  town  was  crowded  with  the 


MAJOR-GENERAL  BENJAMIN    LINCOLN. 
From  a  steel  engraving. 


The  Ebbing  Tide  355 

officers  of  the  French  and  American  armies,  and  with 
gentlemen  for  many  miles  around,  who  hastened  to 
welcome  the  conquerors  of  Cornwallis.  The  citizens 
got  up  a  splendid  ball,  to  which  the  matron  was  special- 
ly invited.  She  observed,  that  although  her  dancing 
days  were  pretty  well  over,  she  should  feel  happy  in 
contributing  to  the  general  festivity,  and  consented  to 
attend. 

"  The  foreign  officers  were  anxious  to  see  the 
mother  of  their  chief.  They  had  heard  indistinct  ru- 
mors touching  her  remarkable  life  and  character,  but 
forming  their  judgments  from  European  examples, 
they  were  prepared  to  expect  in  the  mother,  that  glitter 
and  show  which  would  have  been  attached  to  the 
parents  of  the  great,  in  the  countries  of  the  old  world. 
How  were  they  surprised,  when  leaning  on  the  arm  of 
her  son,  she  entered  the  room,  dressed  in  the  very 
plain,  yet  becoming  garb,  worn  by  the  Virginia  lady  of 
the  old  time.  Her  address  always  dignified  and  im- 
posing, was  courteous,  though  reserved.  She  received 
the  complimentary  attentions  which  were  paid  to  her 
without  evincing  the  slightest  elevation,  and  at  an  early 
hour,  wishing  the  company  much  enjoyment  of  their 
pleasures,  observed,  that  it  was  high  time  for  old  folks 
to  be  in  bed,  and  retired,  leaning  as  before  on  the  arm 
of  her  son. 

"  The  foreign  officers  were  amazed  in  beholding 
one  whom  so  many  causes  conspired  to  elevate,  pre- 
serving the  even  tenor  of  her  life,  while  such  a  blaze 
of  glory  shone  upon  her  name  and  offspring.  It  was 
a  moral  spectacle  such  as  the  European  world  had 
furnished  no  examples  [of].  Names  of  ancient  lore 
were  heard  to  escape  from  their  lips ;  and  they  de- 


356  George  Washington 

dared,  *  if  such  are  the  matrons  in  America,  well  may 
she  boast  of  illustrious  sons.' 

*  It  was  on  this  festive  occasion,  that  General  Wash- 
ington danced  a  minuet  with  Mrs.  Willis.  It  closed  his 
danqng  days.  The  minuet  was  much  in  vogue  at  that 
period,  and  was  peculiarly  calculated  for  the  display  of 
the  splendid  figure  of  the  chief,  and  his  natural  grace 
and  elegance  of  air  and  manner.  The  gallant  French- 
men who  were  present,  of  which  fine  people  it  may 
be  said  that  dancing  forms  one  of  the  elements  of  their 
existence,  so  much  admired  the  American  performance, 
as  to  admit  that  a  Parisian  education  could  not  have 
improved  it.  As  the  evening  advanced,  the  Com- 
mander-in-chief yielding  to  the  general  gayety  of  the 
scene,  went  down  some  dozen  couples  in  the  contre- 
dance  with  great  spirit  and  satisfaction." 

This  idyllic  scene  from  the  olden  time  throws  a 
charming  and  truthful  light  upon  one  side  of  Wash- 
ington's character — his  devotion  to  his  mother,  and 
the  simple  joy  he  felt  in  her  presence  and  in  that 
of  his  intimate  friends.  When  the  Revolution  closed 
a  year  later,  the  General  never  again  danced,  said 
Mrs.  Alexander  Hamilton,  though  often  tempted  to 
do  so  by  the  beautiful  women  who  caressed  and 
adored  him. 

From  this  gleam  of  friendly  joy  at  Fredericks- 
burg,  so  intimately  associated  with  his  schoolboy 
days,  he  passed  on  to  his  beloved  Mount  Vernon, 
and  loitering  a  while  there,  hurried  to  his  official 
responsibilities  at  Philadelphia.  In  this  lively  city 
he  spent  the  winter  of  1782,  overwhelmed  with  ad- 


The  Ebbing  Tide  357 

dresses,  balls,  parties,  ovations  of  every  kind,  the 
centre  of  all  the  festivities  given  in  honour  of  the 
Continental  armies  and  their  achievements. 

Wilmington,  North  Carolina,  was  soon  evacuated 
by  the  invader,  who  now  concentrated  all  his  forces 
in  the  South  at  Charleston  and  Savannah,  and  af- 
fairs hi  that  region  sped  swimmingly  to  a  conclusion, 
till,  towards  the  middle  of  December,  the  British 
marched  out  of  Charleston,  and  General  Greene,  who 
"  lost  so  many  battles  and  won  so  many  campaigns," 
marched  in  amid  the  grateful  acclamations  of  the 
people.  Old  St.  Michael's  never  pealed  a  merrier 
chime,  the  harbour  batteries  of  Fort  Moultrie  and 
Sullivan's  Island  never  emitted  more  joyous  thun- 
ders than  on  this  occasion. 

Firm  as  King  and  Parliament  were  in  their  zeal 
still  to  prosecute  the  war,  gaily  as  the  exchange  of 
prisoners  went  on  through  official  cartels,  ex- 
changed, as  the  captive  Cornwallis  might  be,  for  the 
captured  Laurens,  affairs  rounded  in  but  slowly  to- 
wards peace,  which  now,  to  both  sides,  had  become 
the  sweetest  and  strongest  emotion  of  the  hour.  In 
May,  Sir  Guy  Carleton  and  Admiral  Digby,  at 
New  York,  were  appointed  a  Peace  Commission  to 
sound  the  colonies  (now  ex-colonies  for  all  gener- 
ations to  come)  and  treat  with  commissioners 
from  Congress  on  the  all-important  matter  of  a 
settlement 

About  the  same  time,  a  singular  letter  came  to 
the  Commander-in-chief  which,  with  Washington's 
reply,  is  so  characteristic  of  the  monarchical  and  re- 


358  George  Washington 

publican  principles  at  stake  in  the  contest,  that  both 
must  be  quoted. 

A  German  royalist,  Lewis  Nicola,  Colonel  of  the 
Invalid  Regiment  in  the  American  service,  deeming 
the  Government  unstable  and  the  Congress  too  im- 
poverished to  settle  the  enormous  arrearages  of  pay 
due  the  soldiers,  wrote  the  following  letter  to  his 
commander,  while  the  army  was  in  camp  at  New- 
burgh  on  the  Hudson: 

"  I  little  doubt,  that,  when  the  benefits  of  a  mixed 
government  are  pointed  out,  and  duly  considered,  such 
will  be  readily  adopted.  In  this  case  it  will,  I  believe, 
be  uncontroverted,  that  the  same  abilities,  which  have 
led  us  through  difficulties,  apparently  insurmountable 
by  human  power,  to  victory  and  glory,  those  qualities, 
that  have  merited  and  obtained  the  universal  esteem 
and  veneration  of  an  army,  would  be  most  likely  to 
conduct  and  direct  us  in  the  smoother  paths  of  peace. 
Some  people  have  so  connected  the  ideas  of  tyranny 
and  monarchy,  as  to  find  it  very  difficult  to  separate 
them.  It  may  therefore  be  requisite  to  give  the  head 
of  such  a  constitution,  as  I  propose,  some  title  appar- 
ently more  moderate ;  but,  if  all  other  things  were  once 
adjusted,  I  believe  strong  arguments  might  be  pro- 
duced for  admitting  the  title  of  King,  which  I  con- 
ceive would  be  attended  with  some  material  ad- 
vantages." 

Washington  replied : 

"  With  a  mixture  of  great  surprise  and  astonish- 
ment, I  have  read  with  attention  the  sentiments  you 
have  submitted  to  my  perusal.  Be  assured,  Sir,  no 


The  Ebbing  Tide  359 

occurrence  in  the  course  of  the  war  has  given  me 
more  painful  sensations,  than  your  information  of 
there  being  such  ideas  existing  in  the  army,  as  you 
have  expressed,  and  I  must  view  with  abhorrence  and 
reprehend  with  severity.  .  .  . 

"  ...  I  am  much  at  a  loss  to  conceive  what  part  of 
my  conduct  could  have  given  encouragement  to  an 
address,  which  to  me  seems  big  with  the  greatest  mis- 
chiefs, that  can  befall  my  country.  If  I  am  not  de- 
ceived in  the  knowledge  of  myself,  you  could  not  have 
found  a  person  to  whom  your  schemes  are  more  dis- 
agreeable." 

A  painful  light  is  cast  upon  the  sincerity  of  the 
peace  negotiations  referred  to,  in  a  letter  written  at 
this  time  by  Washington  to  Colonel  John  Laurens : 

"  Sir  Guy  Carleton  is  using  every  art  to  soothe  and 
lull  our  people  into  a  state  of  security.  Admiral  Digby 
is  capturing  all  our  vessels,  and  suffocating  as  fast 
as  possible  in  prison-ships  all  our  seamen,  who  will  not 
enlist  into  the  service  of  his  Britannic  Majesty;  and 
Haldimand  [Governor-General  of  Quebec]  with  his 
savage  allies,  is  scalping  and  burning  on  the  frontiers. 
Such  is  the  line  of  conduct  pursued  by  the  different 
commanders,  and  such  their  politics." 

As  long  as  such  things  could  go  on,  peace  seemed 
like  a  dipping  gull,  now  rising  from,  now  sinking 
into  the  seething  waters,  a  hovering,  unstable  thing, 
unable  to  alight  anywhere  in  these  distracted  lands. 

Especially  impossible  did  it  seem,  when  Admiral 
Rodney  defeated  and  captured  De  Grasse  and  his 
fleet  in  the  West  Indies  in  April,  and  Yorktown  for 


360  George  Washington 

a  moment  was  brilliantly  avenged.  True,  all  this 
time  the  privateers,  commissioned  by  Franklin,  were 
scouring  the  Channel  and  scourging  the  high  seas, 
pouncing  with  "  Alabama  "-like  swiftness  on  the  fat 
British  coasting-trade,  multiplying  abundantly  in 
the  regions  where  buccaneer  and  filibuster,  before 
and  after  this  time,  so  sadly  distinguished  them- 
selves, and  realising  the  old  viking  spirit  in  a  thou- 
sand picturesque,  sanguinary  forms  never  dreamt 
of  by  the  Norse  sea-rovers. 

John  Paul  Jones,  the  Scotch  gardener,  and  others 
like  him,  were  already  starting  the  germs  of  that  sea- 
power  which  sprang,  first  and  foremost,  from  the 
daring  achievements  of  Yankee  skippers,  hunting 
the  elusive  whale  in  the  Arctic  seas,  ripened  quickly 
to  the  achievements  of  1812,  and,  by  the  time  the 
year  1860  came  around,  rendered  the  United  States 
Commercial  Navy  the  swiftest  and  finest  in  the 
world. 

Yet  for  all  this  retrospective  and  prospective  suc- 
cess, Washington  could  only  gloomily  write  to 
James  McHenry,  as  late  as  September  of  this  year 
(1782): 

"  That  the  King  will  push  the  war,  as  long  as  the 
nation  will  find  men  and  money,  admits  not  of  a  doubt 
in  my  mind.  The  whole  tenor  of  his  conduct,  as  well 
as  his  last  proroguing  speech,  on  the  nth  of  July, 
plainly  indicates  it,  and  shows  in  a  clear  point  of  view 
the  impolicy  of  relaxation  on  our  part.  If  we  are  wise, 
let  us  prepare  for  the  worst.  There  is  nothing,  which 


The  Ebbing-  Tide  361 

will  so  soon  produce  a  speedy  and  honorable  peace,  as 
a  state  of  preparation  for  war ;  and  we  must  either  do 
this,  or  lay  our  account  to  patch  up  an  inglorious  peace, 
after  all  the  toil,  blood,  and  treasure  we  have  spent." 

The  readiness  of  the  Americans  to  go  on  with  the 
war  is  thus  attested  by  the  Prince  de  Broglie,  who 
seeing  them  in  their  quarters  at  Verplanck's  on  the 
Hudson,  thus  describes  them  to  a  correspondent: 

"  The  whole  army  was  paraded  under  arms  this 
morning  in  order  to  honor  his  Excellency  Count 
Rochambeau  on  his  arrival  from  the  southward.  The 
troops  were  all  formed  in  two  lines  extending  from  the 
ferry,  where  the  count  crossed,  to  headquarters.  A 
troop  of  horse  met  and  received  him  at  King's  ferry, 
and  conducted  him  through  the  line  to  General  Wash- 
ington's quarters,  where  sitting  on  his  horse  by  the  side 
of  his  Excellency,  the  whole  army  marched  before  him 
and  paid  the  usual  salute  and  honors.  Our  troops  were 
now  in  complete  uniform  and  exhibited  every  mark  of 
soldierly  discipline.  Count  Rochambeau  was  most 
highly  gratified  to  perceive  the  very  great  improve- 
ment which  our  army  had  made  in  appearance  since 
he  last  reviewed  them,  and  expressed  his  astonishment 
at  their  rapid  progress  in  military  skill  and  discipline. 
He  said  to  General  Washington  '  you  must  have  formed 
an  alliance  with  the  King  of  Prussia.  These  troops 
are  Prussians.'  Several  of  the  principal  officers  of  the 
French  army  who  have  seen  troops  of  different  Euro- 
pean nations,  have  bestowed  the  highest  encomiums  and 
applause  on  our  army,  and  declared  that  they  had  seen 
none  superior  to  the  Americans." 


362  George  Washing-ton 

Another  disinterested  observer  writes  of  the 
Commander : 

"  One  of  my  most  earnest  wishes  was  ta  set  Wash- 
ington, the  hero  of  America.  He  was  then  encamped  at 
a  short  distance  from  us,  and  the  Count  de  Rocham- 
beau  was  kind  enough  to  introduce  me  to  him.  TOG 
often  reality  disappoints  the  expectations  our  imagi- 
nation had  raised,  and  admiracion  diminishes  by  a  too 
near  view  of  the  object  upon  which  it  had  been  be- 
stowed ;  but,  on  seeing  General  Washington,  I  found 
a  perfect  similarity  between  the  impression  produced 
upon  me  by  his  aspect,  and  the  idea  I  had  formed  of 
him.  His  exterior  disclosed,  as  it  were,  the  history  of 
his  life :  simplicity,  grandeur,  dignity,  calmness,  good- 
ness, firmness,  the  attributes  of  his  character,  were  al- 
so stamped  upon  his  features,  and  in  all  his  person. 
His  stature  was  noble  and  elevated;  the  expression  of 
his  features  mild  and  benevolent ;  his  smile  graceful 
and  pleasing;  his  manners  simple,  without  familiarity. 
.  .  .  Washington,  when  I  saw  him,  was  forty-nine 
years  of  age.  He  endeavored  modestly  to  avoid  the 
marks  of  admiration  and  respect  which  were  so 
anxiously  offered  to  him,  and  yet  no  man  ever  knew 
better  how  to  receive  and  to  acknowledge  them.  He 
listened,  with  an  obliging  attention,  to  all  those  who 
addressed  him,  and  the  expression  of  his  countenance 
had  conveyed  his  answer  before  he  spoke." 

Hardly  is  it  to  be  wondered  at,  that  a  man  of  this 
character,  so  simple,  so  lofty,  so  commanding,  should 
now  grasp  the  reins  of  moral  power  with  supreme 
firmness,  and  control  a  situation  which  had  become 
nearly  tragic.  This  sihution  unfolded  during  the 


The  Ebbing  Tide  363 

year  1783,  out  of  the  intolerable  suspense  and  suf- 
ferings of  the  soldiers  whose  patience  had  worn  out 
about  their  pay,  and  whose  bitterness  was  nourished 
by  anonymous  articles  scattered  about  the  camp,  in- 
stigated, it  is  thought,  by  General  Gates.  The  scene 
was  one  of  the  most  pathetic  in  all  Washington's 
career. 

An  unsigned  address,  due  to  a  certain  Major 
Armstrong,  awoke  the  spirit  of  insurrection  in  the 
bosom  of  the  soldiers. 

"  The  voice  of  the  armed  man  was  rising  clearly  and 
distinctly  now.  It  declared  the  sufferings  and  sorrows 
of  the  soldier  and  the  ingratitude  of  Congress,  and 
called  the  army  to  action  and  to  the  use  of  force.  Thus 
the  direct  appeal  was  made.  Only  one  man  could  keep 
words  from  becoming  deeds,  and  Washington  came 
forward  and  took  control  of  the  whole  movement.  He 
censured  the  address  in  general  orders,  and  then  called, 
himself,  a  meeting  of  the  officers.  When  they  had 
assembled,  Washington  arose  with  a  manuscript  in  his 
hand,  and  as  he  took  out  his  glasses  he  said :  '  You 
see,  gentlemen,  I  have  grown  both  blind  and  gray  in 
your  service.'  Very  simple  words,  very  touching,  with 
a  pathos  which  no  rhetoric  could  give,  a  pathos  pos- 
sible only  in  a  great  nature  deeply  stirred.  And  then 
he  read  his  speech — clear,  vigorous,  elevated  in  tone, 
an  appeal  to  the  past  and  to  patriotism,  an  earnest 
prayer  to  leave  that  past  unsullied  and  to  show  confi- 
dence in  the  Government  and  the  civil  power,  the  whole 
ending  with  a  promise  that  the  General  would  obtain 
justice  for  the  army."  1 

1  Lodge,  The  Story  of  the  Revolution,  p.  545. 


364  George  Washington 

"  A  meeting  of  the  officers  of  the  army  at  the  '  New 
Building/  conformably  to  the  notification  given  in 
the  general  orders  of  the  nth,  General  Gates  as  senior 
officer  presiding.  The  meeting  was  opened  by  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  who  read  an  address,  reminding 
those  present  of  the  cause  for  which  they  had  taken  up 
arms,  and  appealing  to  them  not  to  adopt  measures 
which  might  cast  a  shade  over  that  glory  which  had 
been  so  justly  acquired,  and  tarnish  the  reputation  of 
an  army  which  was  celebrated  through  all  Europe  for 
its  fortitude  and  patriotism.  By  thus  determining  and 
thus  acting,  you  will  give  one  more  distinguished  proof 
of  unexampled  patriotism  and  patient  virtue,  rising 
superior  to  the  pressure  of  the  most  complicated  suf- 
ferings ;  and  you  will,  by  the  dignity  of  your  conduct, 
afford  occasion  for  posterity  to  say,  when  speaking  of 
the  glorious  example  you  have  exhibited  to  mankind, 
'  Had  this  day  been  wanting,  the  world  had  never  seen 
the  last  stage  of  perfection,  to  which  human  nature  is 
capable  of  attaining.'  "  J 

In  reference  to  the  whole  matter,  Washington  in 
an  official  communication  to  Congress  says  as  simply 
as  possible: 

"At  Newburgh. 

"  I  have  the  honor  to  inform  your  Excellency,  for 
the  satisfaction  of  Congress,  that  the  meeting  of  the 
officers,  which  was  mentioned  in  my  last,  was  held 
yesterday ;  and  that  it  has  terminated  in  a  manner, 
which  I  had  reason  to  expect,  from  a  knowledge  of  that 
good  sense  and  steady  patriotism  of  the  gentlemen  of 
the  army,  which  on  frequent  occasions  I  have  dis- 
covered." 

1  Baker,  Itinerary  of  General  Washington,  vol.  i,  p.  290. 


The  Ebbing  Tide  365 

"  At  Newburgh. 

"  Orderly  Book. — The  Commander-in-Chief  is  high- 
ly satisfied  with  the  report  of  the  proceedings  of  the 
officers  assembled  on  the  I5th  instant,  in  obedience  to 
the  orders  of  the  nth.  He  begs  his  inability  to  com- 
municate an  adequate  idea  of  the  pleasing  feelings 
which  have  been  excited  in  his  breast  by  the  affection- 
ate sentiments  expressed  toward  him  on  that  occasion, 
may  be  considered  as  an  apology  for  his  silence." 

The  tide  was  now  swiftly  ebbing  towards  peace. 


CHAPTER    XVIII 

A  "  MERRIE  CHRISTMAS  " 

THE  3Oth  of  the  previous  November, — it  was  now 
March,  1783, — had  seen  the  signing  of  the 
preliminaries  of  peace  at  Paris,  after  long  and  dif- 
ficult negotiations  between  Oswald,  Grenville,  and 
Strachey  on  behalf  of  the  British,  and  Franklin, 
Adams,  Jay,  and  Laurens  on  behalf  of  the  other 
side.  Perhaps  the  very  news  of  peace  excited  the 
suspicions  of  the  army  that  Congress  would  disband 
them  without  settling  its  accounts,  and  that  thus 
their  sufferings  would  never  be  requited. 

This  mutinous  spirit,  which  had  before  filled  the 
Pennsylvania  and  Jersey  troops,  and  had  lately 
caused  Congress  to  flee  in  terror  from  Philadelphia 
to  Princeton,  was,  not  without  reason,  attributed  to 
Gates,  "  about  whom  hangs  the  odious  aroma  of 
impotent  malice " ;  the  ambiguous  politician-com- 
mander had  claimed  the  glory  of  Saratoga,  had  been 
forced  to  retire  after  his  crushing  defeat  by  Corn- 
wallis  at  Camden,  South  Carolina,  and,  now  rein- 
stated, had  by  the  magnanimity  of  Washington  been 
put  in  command  of  the  right  wing  of  the  American 
Army  at  the  New  York  headquarters. 

Perhaps  the  return  of  the  French  troops,  in 
October  and  January,  aroused  that  longing  for  home, 

366 


A  "Merrie  Christmas"         367 

"  the  desire  to  kiss  wives  and  sweethearts," — which 
all  along  had  made  the  American  soldiers'  position 
one  of  peculiar  hardship.  Washington's  keen  ap- 
preciation of  the  fortitude  of  his  men  crops  out  in  a 
letter  of  congratulation  to  General  Greene,  on  the 
happy  ending  of  the  Charleston  campaign : 

"  It  is  with  a  pleasure,  which  friendship  only  is  sus- 
ceptible of,  that  I  congratulate  you  on  the  glorious  end 
you  have  put  to  hostilities  in  the  Southern  States.  The 
honor  and  advantages  of  it,  I  hope  and  trust  you  will 
long  live  to  enjoy  ...  If  historiographers  should  be 
hardy  enough  to  fill  the  page  of  History  with  the 
advantages,  that  have  been  gained  with  unequal  num- 
bers, (on  the  part  of  America)  in  the  course  of  this 
contest,  and  attempt  to  relate  the  distressing  circum- 
stances under  which  they  have  been  obtained,  it  is  more 
than  probable,  that  Posterity  will  bestow  on  their  labors 
the  epithet  and  marks  of  fiction;  for  it  will  not  be 
believed,  that  such  a  force  as  Great  Britain  has  em- 
ployed for  eight  years  in  this  country  could  be  baffled 
in  their  plan  of  subjugating  it,  by  numbers  infinitely 
less,  composed  of  men  oftentimes  half  starved,  always 
in  Rags,  without  pay,  and  experiencing  at  times  every 
species  of  distress,  which  human  nature  is  capable  of 
undergoing.  I  intended  to  have  wrote  you  a  long  let- 
ter on  sundry  matters;  but  Major  Burnet  popped  in 
unexpectedly  at  a  time,  when  I  was  preparing  for  the 
celebration  of  the  day,  and  was  just  going  to  a  review 
of  the  troops,  previous  to  the  feu  de  joie." 

When  the  good  ship  Washington,  Captain  Burney, 
brought  to  Philadelphia  the  joyful  tidings  of  the 
signing  of  the  peace  preliminaries,  the  Commander's 


368  George  Washington 

observations  to  the  president  of  Congress  were  as 
follows  : 

"  I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  your  Excellency's 
favor  of  the  I2th  instant,  and  to  thank  you  most  sin- 
cerely for  the  intelligence  you  were  pleased  to  com- 
municate. The  articles  of  treaty  between  America  and 
Great  Britain  are  as  full  and  as  satisfactory  as  we  had 
reason  to  expect;  but,  from  the  connexion  in  which 
they  stand  with  a  general  pacification,  they  are  very 
inconclusive  and  contingent." 

To  Alexander  Hamilton,  one  of  his  most  efficient 
aides,  counsellors,  and  friends,  he  wrote  some  ten 
days  later: 

"  I  rejoice  most  exceedingly  that  there  is  an  end  to 
our  warfare,  and  that  such  a  field  is  opening  to  our 
view,  as  will,  with  wisdom  to  direct  the  cultivation  of 
it,  make  us  a  great,  a  respectable,  and  happy  people ; 
but  it  must  be  improved  by  other  means  than  State 
politics,  and  unreasonable  jealousies  and  prejudices,  or 
(it  requires  not  the  second  sight  to  see  that)  we  shall 
be  instruments  in  the  hands  of  our  enemies,  and  those 
European  powers,  who  may  be  jealous  of  our  greatness 
in  union,  to  dissolve  the  confederation.  But,  to  obtain 
this,  although  the  way  seems  extremely  plain,  is  not  so 
easy. 

"  It  remains  only  for  the  States  to  be  wise,  and  to 
establish  their  independence  on  the  basis  of  an  invio- 
lable, efficacious  union,  and  a  firm  confederation, 
which  may  prevent  their  being  made  the  sport  of  Euro- 
pean policy.  May  heaven  give  them  wisdom  to  adopt 
the  measures  still  necessary  for  this  important  pur- 
pose." 


A  "  Merrie  Christmas"         369 

His  prayer  for  an  inviolable  Union  was  thus  early 
and  thus  forcefully  expressed,  and  no  less  great  was 
his  dread  that  the  confederation  might  prove  a  rope 
of  sand.  This  dread  was  further  emphasise^  in  a 
remarkable  letter  to  LaFayette  in  the  April  of  this 
year.  His  experience  with  a  rebellious  and  insub- 
ordinate army  appeared  to  fill  him  with  horror  at 
the  prospect  of  dissolving  and  insubordinate  States, 
run  away  with  by  the  nightmare  of  individualism 
and  State  sovereignty. 

"  We  stand  now  an  Independent  People,  and  have 
yet  to  learn  political  Tactics.  We  are  placed  among 
the  nations  of  the  Earth,  and  have  a  character  to  es- 
tablish ;  but  how  we  shall  acquit  ourselves,  time  must 
discover.  The  probability  is  (at  least  I  fear  it)  that 
local  or  State  politics  will  interfere  too  much  with  the 
more  liberal  and  extensive  plan  of  government,  which 
wisdom  and  foresight,  freed  from  the  mist  of  prejudice, 
would  dictate;  and  that  we  shall  be  guilty  of  many 
blunders  in  treading  this  boundless  theatre,  before  we 
shall  have  arrived  at  any  perfection  in  this  art;  in  a 
word,  that  the  experience,  which  is  purchased  at  the 
price  of  difficulties  and  distress,  will  alone  convince 
us,  that  the  honor,  power,  and  true  Interest  of  this 
Country  must  be  measured  by  a  Continental  scale,  and 
that  every  departure  therefrom  weakens  the  Union, 
and  may  ultimately  break  the  band  which  holds  us 
together." 

April  6th  became  an  ever-memorable  day  in  the 
annals  of  the  war,  as  the  day  on  which  Sir  Guy 
Carleton,  at  New  York,  announced  to  Washington 


37O  George  Washington 

official  tidings  of  the  offered  ratification  of  the 
peace  terms  by  his  Majesty's  government.  The  let- 
ters exchanged  by  the  two  commanders  follow : 

CARLETON  TO  WASHINGTON 

"  A  packet  from  England  arrived  in  this  port  last 
night,  by  which  I  have  despatches  from  Mr.  Towns- 
hend,  one  of  his  Majesty's  principal  Secretaries  of 
State,  communicating  official  intelligence,  that  prelimi- 
nary articles  of  peace  with  France  and  Spain  were 
signed  at  Paris  on  the  2Oth  of  January  last,  and  that 
the  ratifications  have  been  since  exchanged  at  the  same 
place.  The  King,  Sir,  has  been  pleased  in  consequence 
of  these  events,  to  order  proclamations  to  be  published, 
declaring  a  cessation  of  arms,  as  well  by  sea  as  land ; 
and  his  Majesty's  pleasure  signified,  that  I  should 
cause  the  same  to  be  published  in  all  places  under  my 
command,  in  order  that  his  Majesty's  subjects  may  pay 
immediate  and  due  obedience  thereto ;  and  such  procla- 
mation I  shall  accordingly  cause  to  be  made  on  Tues- 
day next,  the  8th  instant." 

WASHINGTON  TO  CARLETON 

"  Wednesday,  April  9. 

"  I  feel  great  satisfaction  from  your  Excellency's 
despatches  by  Captain  Stapleton,  conveying  to  me  the 
joyful  annunciation  of  your  having  received  official 
accounts  of  the  conclusion  of  a  general  peace,  and  a 
cessation  of  hostilities.  Without  official  authority 
from  Congress,  but  perfectly  relying  on  your  commu- 
nication, I  can  at  this  time  only  issue  my  orders  to  the 
American  out-posts,  to  suspend  all  acts  of  hostilities 
until  further  orders.  This  shall  be  instantly  done ; 
and  I  shall  be  happy  in  the  momentary  expectation  of 


A  "Metric  Christmas"         371 

having  it  in  my  power  to  publish  to  the  American  army 
a  general  cessation  of  hostilities  between  Great  Britain 
and  America." 

Years  before,  in  a  small  Massachusetts  village,  the 
opening  of  hostilities  had  begun  with  the  ''  Minute 
men,"  all  alert  and  aflame  to  resent  the  invasion  of 
their  rights.  On  the  same  iQth  of  April,  eight  years 
later,  an  order  in  the  General's  Orderly  Book 
directed : 

"  The  Commander-in-Chief  orders  the  cessation  of 
hostilities,  between  the  United  States  and  the  King  of 
Great  Britain,  to  be  publicly  proclaimed  to-morrow  at 
twelve  at  the  New  Building;  and  that  the  Proclama- 
tion, which  will  be  communicated  herewith,  be  read  to- 
morrow evening  at  the  head  of  every  regiment  and 
corps  of  the  army ;  after  which  the  Chaplains  with  the 
several  brigades  will  render  thanks  to  Almighty  God 
for  all  His  mercies,  particularly  for  His  overruling  the 
wrath  of  man  to  His  glory,  and  causing  the  rage  of 
war  to  cease  among  the  nations." 

Washington  and  Governor  Clinton  dined  on 
board  the  Admiral's  frigate  at  Dobb's  Ferry,  and 
here,  when  Washington  left,  the  first  salute  of 
seventeen  guns  was  fired  in  honour  of  the  American 
nation  and  the  American  commander,  May  8th,  very 
near  the  date  when,  176  years  before,  the  Jamestown 
pilgrims  first  beheld  the  beautiful  shores  of  Hamp- 
ton Roads  and  the  wide  savannahs,  down  which 
poured  the  floods  of  the  Chesapeake,  the  Potomac, 
and  the  James. 

These   176   years   had,   indeed,   seen  marvellous 


372  George  Washington 

things  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic : — a  speck,  a  dot 
of  population  here  and  there,  great  empty  wilder- 
nesses filled  with  life  and  activity ;  vast  solitary  bays 
and  rivers  and  estuaries,  unflecked  save  by  the  white 
wing  of  crane  and  heron  and  gull,  now  swarming 
with  sea-craft  and  sea-power  of  every  description; 
towns  and  cities  sprung  as  if  by  magic  from  reeds 
and  marshes,  from  pine  groves  and  magnolia  groves ; 
everywhere,  along  hundreds  of  miles  of  coast-line, 
sturdy  little  commonwealths  of  English,  Dutch,  and 
Huguenot  parentage  founded  and  flourishing; 
everywhere,  the  vast  interior  receding  before  the  ad- 
vancing settlers,  new  mountain  chains  crossed  and 
conquered,  rivers  mightier  still  discovered  and,  like 
fiery  steeds,  made  to  feel  the  bit  and  bridle  of  in- 
cipient inland  commerce :  in  short,  a  new,  beautiful, 
glorious  world  as  absolutely  novel  as  the  other  side 
of  the  moon  would  be,  could  it  be  brought  within 
the  ken  of  the  telescope. 

Never  was  a  new  world  won  and  lost  under  more 
extraordinary  circumstances. 

It  was  at  this  time  that,  exchanging  momentarily 
the  sword  for  the  pen,  Washington,  urged  by  the 
necessity  of  the  occasion — his  ever-present  dread  of 
a  dissolution  of  the  Union, — wrote  the  Circular 
Letter  to  the  governors  of  the  thirteen  States,  which, 
for  power  and  felicity  of  statement  in  its  recogni- 
tion of  the  peculiar  dangers  menacing  the  Republic, 
has  never  been  surpassed.  In  it  he  says : 

"  There  are  four  things,  which,  I  humbly  conceive, 
are  essential  to  the  well-being,  I  may  even  venture  to 


A  "  Merrie  Christmas"         373 

say,  to  the  existence  of  the  United  States,  as  an  in- 
dependent power. 

"  First.  An  indissoluble  union  of  the  States  under 
one  federal  head. 

"  Secondly.    A  sacred  regard  to  public  justice. 

"  Thirdly.  The  adoption  of  a  proper  peace  establish- 
ment; and, 

"  Fourthly.  The  prevalence  of  that  pacific  and 
friendly  disposition  among  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  which  will  induce  them  to  forget  their  local  pre- 
judices and  policies;  to  make  those  mutual  conces- 
sions, which  are  requisite  to  the  general  prosperity; 
and,  in  some  instances,  to  sacrifice  their  individual 
advantages  to  the  interest  of  the  community. 

"  These  are  the  pillars  on  which  the  glorious  fabric 
of  our  independency  and  national  character  must  be 
supported.  Liberty  is  the  best  basis ;  and  whoever 
would  dare  to  sap  the  foundation,  or  overturn  the  struc- 
ture under  whatever  specious  pretext  he  may  attempt 
it,  will  merit  the  bitterest  execration,  and  the  severest 
punishment,  which  can  be  inflicted  by  his  injured 
country."  x 

Proceeding  to  discuss  three  of  these  four  points 
in  detail,  he  leaves  behind  him  a  "  legacy  "  to  his 
country,  as  he  calls  it,  unexampled  for  wisdom,  far- 
sightedness, and  just  appreciation  of  the  perils  of 
the  moment.  The  noble  words  with  which  this  com- 
position closes  must  for  ever  remove  the  doubt 
whether  Washington  was  a  Christian : 

"  I  make  it  my  earnest  prayer,  that  God  would  have 
you,  and  the  State  over  which  you  preside,  in  his  holy 

1  Ford,  Writings  of  George  Washington,  vol.  x,  p.  257. 


374  George  Washington 

protection ;  that  he  would  incline  the  hearts  of  the  citi- 
zens to  cultivate  a  spirit  of  subordination  and  obedience 
to  government;  to  entertain  a  brotherly  affection  and 
love  for  one  another,  for  their  fellow  citizens  of  the 
United  States  at  large,  and  particularly  for  their 
brethren  who  have  served  in  the  field ;  and  finally,  that 
he  would  most  graciously  be  pleased  to  dispose  us  all 
to  do  justice,  to  love  mercy,  and  to  demean  ourselves 
with  that  charity,  humility,  and  pacific  temper  of  mind, 
which  were  the  characteristics  of  the  Divine  Author 
of  our  blessed  religion,  and  without  an  humble  imita- 
tion of  whose  example  in  these  things,  we  can  never 
hope  to  be  a  happy  nation." 

One  of  the  closest  students  of  Washington's  ca- 
reer presents,  in  striking  terms,  the  facts  of  the 
General's  unceasing  devotion  to  religion  and  to  re- 
ligious observances,  the  more  striking  because  the 
critic  is  an  Englishman : 

"  Among  the  first  five  Presidents  of  the  United 
States,  including  all  who  may  be  fairly  classed  as  con- 
temporaries of  the  Revolution,  no  fewer  than  three 
were  Episcopalians ;  and  a  better  Churchman, — or  at 
all  events,  a  better  man  who  ranked  himself  as  a 
Churchman, — than  George  Washington  it  would  have 
been  hard  indeed  to  discover.  When  at  home  on  the 
bank  of  the  Potomac,  he  had  always  gone  of  a  Sunday 
morning  to  what  would  have  been  called  a  distant 
church  by  any  one  except  a  Virginian  equestrian ;  and 
he  spent  Sunday  afternoons,  alone  and  unapproach- 
able, in  his  library.  In  war  he  found  time  for  daily 
prayer  and  meditation,  (as,  by  no  wish  of  his,  the 
absence  of  privacy,  which  is  a  feature  in  camp  life,  re- 


A  "Merrie  Christmas"         375 

vealed  to  those  who  were  immediately  about  him;)  he 
attended  public  worship  himself ;  and  by  every  availa- 
ble means  he  encouraged  the  practice  of  religion  in  his 
soldiers,  to  whom  he  habitually  stood  in  a  kind  of 
fatherly  relation.  There  are  many  pages  in  his  Orderly 
Books  which  indicate  a  determination  that  the  multitude 
of  young  fellows,  who  were  entrusted  to  his  charge, 
should  have  all  possible  facilities  for  being  as  well- 
behaved  as  in  their  natural  native  villages.  The  troops 
were  excused  fatigue-duty  in  order  that  they  might  not 
miss  church.  If  public  worship  was  interrupted  on  a 
Sunday,  by  the  call  to  arms,  a  service  was  held  on  a 
convenient  day  in  the  ensuing  week.  The  chaplains 
were  exhorted  to  urge  the  soldiers  that  they  ought  to 
live  and  act  like  Christian  men  in  times  of  distress  and 
danger;  and  after  every  great  victory,  and  more  par- 
ticularly at  the  final  proclamation  of  Peace,  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  earnestly  recommended  that  the  army 
should  universally  attend  the  rendering  of  thanks  to 
Almighty  God  '  with  seriousness  of  deportment,  and 
gratitude  of  heart.' 

"  It  therefore  was,"  continues  Trevelyan,  "  the  more 
noticeable  that  he  ceased  to  be  a  regular  Communicant 
as  long  as  the  war  lasted.  Washington  always  had  his 
reasons  for  what  he  did,  or  left  undone ;  but  he  seldom 
gave  them ;  and  his  motive  for  abstaining  from  the 
Sacrament  was  not  a  subject  on  which  he  would  be  in- 
clined to  break  his  ordinary  rule  of  reticence.  On  one 
occasion  during  his  campaigns  he  is  known  to  have 
taken  the  Communion  under  circumstances  which 
throw  some  light  upon  his  inward  convictions.  While 
the  army  was  quartered  at  Morristown,  the  Presby- 
terians of  the  place  were  about  to  hold  their  half-yearly 


376  George  Washington 

administration.  Washington  paid  a  visit  to  their  minis- 
ter, and  enquired  whether  it  accorded  with  the  canon 
of  his  Church  to  admit  Communicants  of  another  de- 
nomination. '  Most  certainly,'  the  clergyman  answered. 
'  Ours  is  not  the  Presbyterian  table,  General,  but  the 
Lord's  table.'  '  I  am  glad  of  it,'  said  Washington. 
'  That  is  as  it  ought  to  be.  Though  a  member  of  the 
Church  of  England,  I  have  no  exclusive  partialities.' 
And,  accordingly,  on  the  next  Sunday  he  took  his 
place  among  the  Communicants.  Washington  loved 
his  own  Church  the  best,  and  had  no  mind  to  leave  it ; 
but  he  was  not  hostile  to  any  faith  which  was  sincerely 
held,  and  which  exerted  a  restraining  and  correcting 
influence  upon  human  conduct.  '  I  am  disposed/  he 
once  told  LaFayette,  '  to  indulge  the  professors  of 
Christianity  with  that  road  to  Heaven  which  to  them 
shall  seem  the  most  direct,  plainest,  easiest,  and  least 
liable  to  exception.'  His  feeling  on  this  matter  was 
accurately  expressed  in  the  instructions  which  he  wrote 
out  for  Benedict  Arnold,  when  that  officer  led  an 
armed  force  of  fierce  and  stern  New  England  Protes- 
tants against  Roman  Catholic  settlements  in  Canada. 
The  whole  paper  was  a  lesson  in  the  statesmanship 
which  is  founded  on  respect  and  consideration  for 
others,  and  still  remains  well  worth  reading.  In  after 
years,  as  President  of  the  United  States,  Washington 
enjoyed  frequent  opportunities  for  impressing  his  own 
sentiments  and  policy,  in  all  that  related  to  religion, 
upon  the  attention  of  his  compatriots.  The  Churches 
of  America  were  never  tired  of  framing  and  present- 
ing Addresses  which  assured  him  of  their  confidence, 
veneration,  and  sympathy ;  and  he  as  invariably  replied 
by  congratulating  them  that  in  their  happy  country 


I  . 


Merrie  Christmas"         377 


worship  was  free,  and  that  men  of  every  creed  were 
eligible  to  every  post  of  honour  and  authority."  1 

For  the  "  Circular  Letter,"  a  critic  so  calm  and 
discriminating  as  Fiske  cannot  withhold  his  ad- 
miration : 

"  The  unparalleled  grandeur  of  Washington's  char- 
acter, his  heroic  services,  and  his  utter  disinterested- 
ness had  given  him  such  a  hold  upon  the  people  as 
scarcely  any  other  statesman  known  to  history,  save 
perhaps  William  the  Silent,  has  ever  possessed.  The 
noble  and  sensible  words  of  his  circular  letter  were 
treasured  up  in  the  minds  of  all  the  best  people  in  the 
country,  and  when  the  time  for  reforming  the  weak 
and  disorderly  government  had  come  it  was  again  to 
Washington  that  men  looked  as  their  leader  and  guide. 
But  that  time  had  not  yet  come." 

Indeed,  the  moral  energy  of  the  chief  seemed  to 
increase,  as  the  ebbing  tide  of  Revolution  receded 
more  and  more  from  the  physical  passions  aroused 
by  the  war ;  his  vision  cleared ;  he  saw  with  strange 
clairvoyance  far  into  the  future  of  his  country,  and 
he  endeavoured  with  all  his  might  to  forestall  diffi- 

4Trevelyan,  The  American  Revolution,  part  ii,  vol.  ii,  p.  316. 

"We  have  abundant  reason  to  rejoice"  (so,  in  January, 
1793,  the  President  told  the  Members  of  the  New  Church  of 
Baltimore)  "  that  every  person  may  here  worship  God  ac- 
cording to  the  dictates  of  his  own  heart.  In  this  enlightened 
age,  and  in  this  land  of  equal  liberty,  it  is  our  boast  that  a 
man's  religious  tenets  will  not  forfeit  the  protection  of  the 
laws,  nor  deprive  him  of  the  right  of  attaining,  and  of  hold- 
ing, the  highest  offices  that  are  known  in  the  United 
States." — Ibid. 


378  George  Washington 

culties,  remove  obstacles,  and  smooth  the  way  for 
a  perfect  union  between  the  States.  Believing,  as 
he  did,  in  "  the  pure  and  benign  light  of  Revela- 
tion "  (his  very  words  in  the  "Circular  Letter"), 
he  constantly  invoked  the  Divine  benediction  on 
his  work  and  prayed  continually  for  the  blessing 
of  Heaven  on  the  cause  of  American  Independence. 
A  recent  historian  asserts  that  England  has  had 
four  great  statesmen :  William  the  Conqueror,  es- 
tablisher  of  the  realm;  Edward  I,  founder  of  the 
real  England ;  Cromwell,  founder  of  the  sea-power 
of  England;  Chatham,  founder  of  the  colonial  em- 
pire. To  these  must  certainly  be  added  Washing- 
ton, founder  of  the  Republic  of  the  West. 

As  the  soldiers  were  about  to  separate,  and  the 
officers  to  return  to  their  homes,  the  happy  thought 
occurred  of  forming  a  permanent  society  of  veterans 
of  the  Revolution  who,  as  they  were  returning,  lit- 
erally to  the  plough,  bethought  themselves  of  call- 
ing the  association  "  The  Society  of  the  Cincinnati," 
in  memory  of  the  Roman  consul. 

" '  While  contemplating  a  final  separation  of  the 
officers  of  the  army,'  says  Doctor  Thacher,  '  the  ten- 
derest  feelings  of  the  heart  had  their  afflicting  opera- 
tions. It  was  at  the  suggestion  of  General  Knox,  and 
with  the  acquiescence  of  the  Commander  in  Chief, 
that  an  expedient  was  devised  by  which  a  hope  was 
entertained  that  their  long  cherished  friendship  and 
social  intercourse  might  be  perpetuated,  and  that  at 
future  periods  they  might  annually  communicate,  and 
revive  a  recollection  of  the  bonds  by  which  they  were 


A      Merrie  Christmas"         379 

connected.'  In  pursuance  of  these  suggestions  a 
meeting  was  held  on  the  loth  day  of  May,  at  which  a 
committee  was  appointed  to  revise  the  proposals  for 
such  an  institution.  The  report  of  the  committee  was 
accepted  at  a  meeting  held  May  I3th,  at  the  quarters 
of  Baron  Steuben,  in  the  Verplanck  house,  near  Fish- 
kill  Landing,  and  the  '  Society  of  the  Cincinnati,' 
with  a  provision  for  the  formation  of  State  Societies, 
was  organised.  Washington  officiated  as  president 
until  his  death."  x 

A  great  outcry  arose  over  the  country,  when  it 
was  found  that  the  "  Cincinnati  "  formed  a  kind  of 
secret  Masonic  society  whose  honours  were  to  be 
hereditary,  and  could  be  shared  by  distinguished 
foreigners.  Even  Washington  showed  a  little  of 
this  alarm  and  fought  for  the  abolition  of  this 
hereditary  feature. 

November  2d  saw  one  of  the  two  last  solemn 
acts  of  Washington's  military  career,  his  affec- 
tionate farewell  to  his  troops  at  Princeton,  where 
Congress  had  been  lately  sitting,  and  where  his 
portrait  was  now  to  replace  that  of  George  III.,  in 
a  frame  which  had  received  a  volley  of  British 
bullets  during  the  Trenton  campaign.  The  pathos 
of  the  farewell  is  only  exceeded  by  its  good  sense, 
lofty  patriotism,  and  heartfelt  gratitude  over  the 
success  of  the  American  arms.  This  success  was 
abundantly  acknowledged  in  the  ten  articles  of  the 
Treaty  of  Paris,  signed  by  David  Hartley  on  behalf 
of  his  Britannic  Majesty,  and  by  John  Adams, 

1  Baker,  Itinerary  of  General  Washington,  vol.  i,  p.  300. 


380  George  Washington 

Benjamin  Franklin,  and  John  Jay,  September  3, 
1783.  In  the  very  first  article  "  The  most  serene 
and  potent  prince,"  George  III.,  Elector,  etc., 
acknowledges  the  complete  independence  of  the 
thirteen  colonies,  fixes  the  vexed  questions  of 
boundary,  throws  open  the  fisheries  to  Americans 
(for  which  Adams  had  so  stoutly  contended),  opens 
the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  to  American  and 
British  trade  and  commerce  (Jay's  especial  work)  ; 
and  left  avenues  open  for  the  loyalists  ("  royalists," 
Franklin,  resenting  the  implication,  called  them) 
to  recover  losses  by  legal  process. 

Franklin  had  not  lived  nearly  twenty  years  in 
Europe,  studying  its  wire-drawn  diplomacy,  with- 
out profiting  by  his  long  experience.  His  hand  was 
visible  in  every  part  of  the  Treaty,  which  was  the 
articulate  product  of  a  world  of  inarticulate  bab- 
bling, intrigue,  wrangling,  and  controversy.  Every 
point  had  to  be  fought  over  a  hundred  times :  the 
bigotry  and  intolerance  of  the  King  were  only 
equalled  by  the  toughness  and  obstinacy  of  the 
American  commissioners,  who  had  behind  them 
the  immense  prestige  of  the  Bourbon  alliance,  ren- 
dering them  tougher  still.  The  absolutely  essential 
thing  was  Independence;  though  gained,  great 
economic  questions  like  that  of  the  Newfoundland 
fisheries  loomed  up,  and  at  length  melted  placidly 
into  the  welcoming  arms  of  the  obstinate  Adams; 
and  the  desire  of  the  King  to  hedge  in  the  colonies 
between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Alleghanies,  while  the 
Mississippi  swept  majestically  through  British  ter- 


A  "Merrie  Christmas"         381 

ritory  only,  was  thwarted  by  the  watchful  Jay.     Of 
Franklin,  an  eminent  English  historian  writes: 

"  Franklin's  works  were  well  known  in  France 
through  several  translations ;  his  great  discovery  of 
the  lightning  conductor  had  been  made  when  the 
Parisian  enthusiasm  for  physical  science  was  at  its 
height,  and  it  was  soon  found  that  the  man  was  at 
least  as  remarkable  as  his  works.  Dressed  with  an 
almost  Quaker  simplicity,  his  thin  grey  hair  not  pow- 
dered according  to  the  general  fashion,  but  covered 
with  a  fur  cap,  he  formed  a  singular  and  striking 
figure  in  the  brilliant  and  artificial  society  of  the 
French  capital.  His  eminently  venerable  appearance, 
the  quaint  quiet  dignity  of  his  manner,  the  mingled 
wit  and  wisdom  of  his  conversation,  the  unfailing 
tact,  shrewdness,  and  self-possession  which  he  showed, 
whether  he  was  negotiating  with  French  statesmen  or 
moving  in  a  social  sphere  so  unlike  that  from  which 
he  had  arisen,  impressed  all  who  came  in  contact  with 
him.  Vergennes  declared  him  to  be  the  only  Amer- 
ican in  whom  he  put  full  confidence.  Turgot  in  an 
immortal  line,  described  him  as  having  torn  the  light- 
ning from  heaven  and  the  sceptre  from  the  tyrant's 
hand.1 

"Voltaire  complimented  him  in  his  most  graceful 
phrases,  and  expressed  his  pride  that  he  was  himself 
able  to  address  him  in,  'the  language  of  Franklin.' 
Poets,  philosophers,  men  and  women  of  fashion,  were 
alike  at  his  feet,  and  all  the  enthusiasms  and  Utopias 

1 "  The  famous  line,  '  Eripuit  ecclo  fulmen,  sceptrumque 
tyrannis,'  was  perhaps  suggested  by  a  passage  in  Manilius." 
— Lecky. 


382  George  Washington 

of  France  seemed  to  gather  round  that  calm  Amer- 
ican, who,  under  the  appearance  of  extreme  simpli- 
city, concealed  the  astuteness  of  the  most  accom- 
plished diplomatist,  and  who  never  for  a  moment  lost 
sight  of  the  object  at  which  he  aimed.  His  corre- 
spondence and  his  Journal  show  clearly  the  half- 
amused,  half-contemptuous,  satisfaction  with  which 
he  received  the  homage  that  was  bestowed  on  him. 
It  became  the  fashion  to  represent  him  as  the  ideal 
philosopher  of  Rousseau.  He  was  compared  by  his 
admirers  to  Phocion,  to  Socrates,  to  William  Tell, 
and  even  to  Jesus  Christ.  His  head,  accompanied  by 
the  line  of  Turgot,  appeared  everywhere  on  snuff 
boxes  and  medallions  and  rings.  He  was  the  idol 
alike  of  the  populace  and  of  society,  and  he  used  all 
his  influence  to  hurry  France  into  war."  1 

The  drama  of  the  Revolution  could  not  close 
more  fittingly  than  with  Washington's  beautiful 
words  to  Congress,  as  he  handed  over  his  sword  to 
General  Mifflin,  president  of  that  body.  He  had 
journeyed  to  Philadelphia  and  then  to  Annapolis 
on  his  way  to  Mount  Vernon,  which,  with  a  single 
exception,  he  had  seen  but  once  in  eight  long  years. 
It  was  nearly  Christmas  Eve,  and  the  soul  of  the 
Commander-in-chief  doubtless  thrilled  with  emotion 
as  he  thought  of  the  blazing  log  fires,  the  Christmas 
cheer,  above  all,  the  beaming  faces  awaiting  him  at 
the  old  mansion.  About  this  place  clustered  now 
all  his  most  precious  hopes  and  aspirations — the 
tranquillity  for  which  he  had  sighed  so  long,  the 

1  Lecky,  England  in  the  XVIIIth  Century,  vol.  iv,  p.  51. 


A  "  Merrie  Christmas"         383 

pleasant  country  occupations  which  had  incessantly 
haunted  him  amid  the  turmoil  of  camps,  intimate 
communion  with  his  chosen  friends,  his  own  fire- 
side bright  with  a  thousand  memories  of  joy  and 
happiness ;  the  fishing,  the  fox-hunting,  the  delight- 
ful runs  across  country,  the  care  of  his  estates,  "  the 
glass  of  wine  and  bit  of  mutton  "  which,  he  as- 
serted, stood  ever  ready  for  his  friends  at  his  table 
— if  they  wanted  more,  they  must  go  elsewhere :  all 
this,  and  a  thousand  more  things  must  have  flowed 
now  in  a  golden  stream  through  that  noble  mind, 
now  emptied  of  the  cares  of  command,  and  ready 
to  fill  itself  with  the  joys  of  home. 

On  the  morning  of  December  23,  1783,  the  little 
town  of  Annapolis  with  its  memories  of  good  Queen 
Anne,  its  bright  Severn  River  winding  in  and  out 
the  rich  plantations,  and  its  throng  of  citizens  and 
congressmen  witnessed  a  scene  which  Thackeray 
has  embodied  in  some  of  his  most  fascinating  pages. 

"  The  alterations  at  Carlton  House  being  finished, 
we  lay  before  our  readers  a  description  of  the  state 
apartments  as  they  appeared  on  the  loth  instant, 
when  H.  R.  H.  gave  a  grand  ball  to  the  principal 
nobility  and  gentry.  .  .  .  The  entrance  to  the  state 
room  fills  the  mind  with  an  inexpressible  idea  of 
greatness  and  splendour. 

"  The  state  chair  is  of  a  gold  frame,  covered  with 
crimson  damask ;  on  each  corner  of  the  feet  is  a  lion's 
head,  expressive  of  fortitude  and  strength;  the  feet 
of  the  chair  have  serpents  twining  round  them,  to 
denote  wisdom.  Facing  the  throne,  appears  the  helmet 


384  George  Washington 

of  Minerva;  and  over  the  windows,  glory  is  repre- 
sented by  Saint  George  with  a  superb  gloria. 

"  But  the  saloon  may  be  styled  the  chef-d'oeuvre, 
and  in  every  ornament  discovers  great  invention.  It  is 
hung  with  a  figured  lemon  satin.  The  window-cur- 
tains, sofas,  and  chairs  are  of  the  same  colour.  The 
ceiling  is  ornamented  with  emblematical  paintings,  rep- 
resenting the  Graces  and  Muses,  together  with 
Jupiter,  Mercury,  Apollo,  and  Paris.  Two  ormolu 
chandeliers  are  placed  here.  It  is  impossible  by  ex- 
pression to  do  justice  to  the  extraordinary  workman- 
ship, as  well  as  design,  of  the  ornaments.  They  each 
consist  of  a  palm,  branching  out  in  five  directions  for 
the  reception  of  lights.  A  beautiful  figure  of  a  rural 
nymph  is  represented  entwining  the  stems  of  the  tree 
with  wreaths  of  flowers.  In  the  centre  of  the  room  is 
a  rich  chandelier.  To  see  this  apartment  dans  son  plus 
beau  jour,  it  should  be  viewed  in  the  glass  over  the 
chimney-piece.  The  range  of  apartments  from  the 
saloon  to  the  ball-room,  when  the  doors  are  open, 
formed  one  of  the  grandest  spectacles  that  ever  was 
beheld." 

In  the  Gentleman's  Magazine,  for  the  very  same 
month  and  year — March,  1784 — is  an  account  of 
another  festival,  in  which  another  great  gentleman 
of  English  extraction  is  represented  as  taking  a 
principal  share: 

"  According  to  order,  H.  E.  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  was  admitted  to  a  public  audience  of  Congress ; 
and,  being  seated,  the  President,  after  a  pause,  in- 
formed him  that  the  United  States  assembled  were 


A      Merrie  Christmas''         385 

ready  to  receive  his  communications.     Whereupon  he 
arose,  and  spoke  as  follows: 

"  '  Mr.  President, 

" '  The  great  events,  on  which  my  resignation 
depended,  having  at  length  taken  place,  I  have  now  the 
honour  of  offering  my  sincere  congratulations  to  Con- 
gress, and  of  presenting  myself  before  them,  to  sur- 
render into  their  hands  the  trust  committed  to  me,  and 
to  claim  the  indulgence  of  retiring  from  the  service  of 
my  country. 

" '  Happy  in  the  confirmation  of  our  independence 
and  sovereignty,  and  pleased  with  the  opportunity  af- 
forded the  United  States  of  becoming  a  respectable 
nation,  I  resign  with  satisfaction  the  appointment  I 
accepted  with  diffidence;  a  diffidence  in  my  abilities 
to  accomplish  so  arduous  a  task,  which,  however,  was 
superseded  by  a  confidence  in  the  rectitude  of  our 
cause,  the  support  of  the  supreme  power  of  the  Union, 
and  the  patronage  of  Heaven. 

'  The  successful  termination  of  the  war  has  verified 
the  most  sanguine  expectations;  and  my  gratitude  for 
the  interposition  of  Providence,  and  the  assistance  I 
have  received  from  my  countrymen,  increases  with 
every  review  of  the  momentous  contest. 

"  '  While  I  repeat  my  obligations  to  the  army  in  gen- 
eral, I  should  do  injustice  to  my  own  feelings  not  to 
acknowledge,  in  this  place,  the  peculiar  services  and 
distinguished  merits  of  the  gentlemen,  who  have  been 
attached  to  my  person  during  the  war.  It  was  im- 
possible that  the  choice  of  confidential  officers  to 
compose  my  family  should  have  been  more  fortunate. 
Permit  me,  Sir,  to  recommend  in  particular  those, 
who  have  continued  in  service  to  the  present  moment, 


386  George  Washington 

as  worthy  of  the  favorable  notice  and  patronage  of 
Congress. 

" '  I  consider  it  an  indispensable  duty  to  close  this 
last  solemn  act  of  my  official  life,  by  commending  the 
interests  of  our  dearest  country  to  the  protection  of 
Almighty  God,  and  those  who  have  the  superintendence 
of  them  to  his  holy  keeping. 

"  '  Having  now  finished  the  work  assigned  me,  I  re- 
tire from  the  great  theatre  of  action;  and,  bidding  an 
affectionate  farewell  to  this  august  body  under  whose 
orders  I  have  so  long  acted,  I  here  offer  my  commis- 
sion, and  take  my  leave  of  all  the  employments  of 
public  life.' 

"  To  which  the  President  replied : 

"  '  Sir,  having  defended  the  standard  of  liberty  in 
the  New  World,  having  taught  a  lesson  useful  to  those 
who  inflict  and  those  who  feel  oppression,  you  retire 
with  the  blessings  of  your  fellow-citizens;  though  the 
glory  of  your  virtues  will  not  terminate  with  your  mili- 
tary command,  but  will  descend  to  remotest  ages.' 

"  Which  was  the  most  splendid  spectacle  ever  wit- 
nessed;— the  opening  feast  of  Prince  George  in  Lon- 
don, or  the  resignation  of  Washington  ?  Which  is  the 
noble  character  for  after  ages  to  admire; — yon  fribble 
dancing  in  lace  and  spangles,  or  yonder  hero  who 
sheathes  his  sword  after  a  life  of  spotless  honour,  a 
purity  unreproached,  a  courage  indomitable,  and  a 
consummate  victory?  Which  of  these  is  the  true  gen- 
tleman ?  What  is  it  to  be  a  gentleman  ?  Is  it  to  have 
lofty  aims,  to  lead  a  pure  life,  to  keep  your  honour 
virgin ;  to  have  the  esteem  of  your  fellow-citizens,  and 
the  love  of  your  fireside  ;  to  bear  good  fortune  meekly : 
to  suffer  evil  with  constancy ;  and  through  evil  or  good 


A  "Merrie  Christmas"         387 

to  maintain  truth  always?  Show  me  the  happy  man 
whose  life  exhibits  these  qualities,  and  him  we  will 
salute  as  gentleman,  whatever  his  rank  may  be;  show 
me  the  prince  who  possesses  them,  and  he  may  be  sure 
of  our  love  and  loyalty."  1 

Millions  of  grateful  hearts  must,  indeed,  have 
cried  "  Merry  Christmas  "  to  the  simple  horseman 
who  next  day,  unattended,  started,  a  plain  Virginia 
cavalier,  on  his  way  back  to  Mount  Vernon. 

1  Thackeray,  Four  Georges,  p.  114. — The  exact  words  of 
Washington  are  taken  as  found  in  his  "  Farewell  Address," 
Appendix,  Lodge's  Story  of  the  Revolution;  W.  C.  Ford, 
vol.  x,  p.  338. 


CHAPTER  -XIX 

BIRTH    OF   THE    CONSTITUTION 

'"PHE  beautiful  scene  enacted  at  Annapolis,  when 
1  Washington,  with  all  the  dignity  of  a  simple 
citizen,  surrendered  his  sword  into  the  hands  of  the 
Continental  Congress,  and  retired  to  Mount  Vernon 
to  spend  his  first  Christmas  in  eight  years  at  home, 
seemed  to  all  to  mark  the  beginning  of  a  gracious 
and  benign  era  of  peace  and  happiness,  quiet  and 
plenty  for  the  worn-out  soldiers,  settling  of  long- 
delayed  accounts  between  debtor  and  creditor,  peo- 
pling of  the  seas  with  white  sails  busily  conveying 
the  products  of  the  soil  to  all  lands,  opening  of  vast 
stretches  of  Western  water  and  wilderness  to  crowd- 
ing immigration,  and  a  general  outburst  of  pros- 
perity on  the  borders,  and  in  the  bosom,  of  the 
thirteen  newly  emancipated  sovereignties.  Scholars 
eagerly  read  their  Virgils,  and  recalled  the  eloquent 
lines  in  which  "  Saturnia  regna "  were  to  return, 
and  a  Golden  Age  spread  itself  over  regions  where 
only  stone  and  bronze  and  iron — alas,  too  often 
blood-stained — had  hitherto  been  the  symbols  and 
the  implements  of  a  rude  and  confused  civilisation. 

"  '  We  have  been  subdued,  it  is  true,'  said  an  English 
Statesman,  'but,  thank  Heaven,  the  brain  and  the 
muscle  which  achieved  the  victory  were  nurtured  by 

388 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       389 

English  blood ;  Old  England,  upon  the  Island  of  Great 
Britain,  has  been  beaten  only  by  Young  England,  in 
America.' "  * 

The  vanquished  party  in  the  great  international 
conflict  might  well  take  this  unction  to  its  soul,  but 
little  did  even  it  know  at  that  time  of  the  vast  geo- 
graphical problems  involved  in  the  Treaty  of  Paris. 
A  far-seeing  Spaniard,  however,  lifted  the  veil  and 
revealed  to  his  sovereign  the  true  situation: 

"  This  territory  the  French  government  was  very 
unwilling  to  leave  in  American  hands.  The  possi- 
bility of  enormous  expansion  which  it  would  afford  to 
the  new  nation  was  distinctly  foreseen  by  sagacious 
men.  Count  Aranda,  the  representative  of  Spain  in 
these  negotiations,  wrote  a  letter  to  his  king  just  after 
the  treaty  was  concluded,  in  which  he  uttered  this  nota- 
ble prophecy :  '  This  federal  republic  is  born  a  pigmy. 
A  day  will  come  when  it  will  be  a  giant,  even  a  colos- 
sus, formidable  in  these  countries.  Liberty  of  con- 
science, the  facility  for  establishing  a  new  population 
on  immense  lands,  as  well  as  the  advantages  of  the  new 
government,  will  draw  thither  farmers  and  artisans 
from  all  the  nations.  In  a  few  years  we  shall  watch 
with  grief,  the  tyrannical  existence  of  this  same  colos- 
sus.' The  letter  went  on  to  predict  that  the  Americans 
would  presently  get  possession  of  Florida  and  attack 
Mexico."  2 

This  region  of  the  "  rainbow  gold  "  was,  indeed, 
a  region  to  which  vast  territorial  possibilities  hung, 

*Lossing,  Field  Book  of  the  Revolution,   Preface. 
"Fiske,  Critical  Period  of  American  History,  p.  19. 


390  George  Washington 

not  as  the  fabled  gold  glimmers  and  then  vanishes 
from  the  end  of  the  rainbow  never  to  reappear,  but 
a  region  of  solid  gold,  of  boundless  wealth,  of  re- 
sources beyond  the  calculation  of  any  arithmetic 
then  available,  of  great  and  shining  streams  sweep- 
ing to  a  central  river,  soon  to  swarm  with  flat-boat 
and  barge  and  raft  and  steamboat,  driving  out  the 
primitive  bateau  and  canoe  of  the  trapper  and  the 
Indian;  of  plains  sweeping  like  grassy  seas  down 
the  winding  rivers,  and  filled  with  herds  of  buf- 
faloes ;  of  forests  rich  in  every  species  of  vegetation, 
of  fauna  and  flora  known  to  the  dreaming  scientists 
of  Europe,  and  in  many  things  that  had  never  en- 
tered into  their  wildest  dreams ;  and  beyond  the  cen- 
tral river,  a  land  full  of  mountains,  fairy-like  in 
their  beauty,  seamed  with  silver  and  gold,  full  of 
prehistoric  remains,  alive  with  antelope  and  coyote, 
with  big  game  and  marvellous  peaks,  lakes  and  gey- 
sers. Through  this  mighty  region,  roamed  scat- 
tered bands  of  Cherokees  and  Chickasaws  and  the 
painted  population  of  the  Six  Nations,  numerous 
and  unstable  as  the  bears  and  wolves  and  vultures 
that  haunted  thicket  and  undergrowth,  ready  to 
pounce  upon  the  hated  white  man  without  a  mo- 
ment's notice. 

Here,  even  while  the  bloody  War  of  Independ- 
ence was  raging  along  the  Atlantic  line,  another 
war  was  raging,  thinner,  paler  perhaps,  but  no  less 
fierce  and  passionate,  almost  elemental  in  its  fury, 
presenting  the  curious  spectacle  of  one  war  be- 
hind another.  In  the  East,  along  the  extended 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       391 

coast-line,  the  British  encircled  the  colonies  with  a 
host  of  ships  and  red-coats,  threatening  death  and 
destruction  to  Washington  and  his  generals.  In 
the  West,  the  Red  Indian,  the  treacherous  Tory, 
the  disaffected  tradesman,  the  mongrel  half-breed 
of  no  discernible  nationality  but  ravenous  for 
plunder,  skulked  around  the  Great  Lakes,  the  head- 
waters of  the  Ohio,  the  Tennessee,  and  the  Holston, 
rendering  night  hideous  with  whoop  and  yell,  and 
day  crimson  with  scalping-knife  and  tomahawk. 

Into  this  region  entered  a  young  Virginian, 
twenty-five  years  of  age,  commissioned  by  Patrick 
Henry,  Governor  of  Virginia,  and  accompanied 
by  170  or  1 80  riflemen  clad  in  buckskin.  George 
Rogers  Clark  had  been  given  full  powers,  in  1778, 
to  invade  and  overrun  this  Terra  Incognita,  back 
up  the  English  confederacy  with  the  Indians,  pla- 
cate the  French  communities  scattered  here  and 
there  in  the  region  of  the  Illinois,  and  capture  or 
dismantle  the  forts  at  Kaskaskia  and  Vincennes. 

After  incredible  exertions,  recalling  those  of 
Benedict  Arnold  in  his  famous  march  on  Quebec 
through  the  wilds  of  Maine,  Clark  accomplished  all 
this,  marched  hundreds  of  miles  through  a  flooded 
wilderness,  took  Hamilton  and  Rocheblave,  the 
English  and  French  commanders,  prisoners,  and 
sent  them  off  to  Virginia ;  thus,  in  a  single  wonder- 
ful campaign,  with  only  two  hundred  men  and  "  a 
spark  of  genius  and  imagination  in  his  brain,"  con- 
quering for  his  country  the  immense  Northwestern 


392  George  Washington 

Territory  out  of  which,  later,  five  empire-like  States 
were  carved. 

"  The  victory  was  complete.  It  was  a  very  shining 
and  splendid  feat  of  arms.  In  the  dead  of  winter,  with 
a  large  part  of  his  force  composed  of  men  of  doubtful 
loyalty  and  of  another  race,  Clark  had  marched  across 
two  hundred  and  forty  miles  of  flooded  wilderness. 
With  no  arms  but  rifles,  he  had  taken  a  heavily  stock- 
aded fort,  defended  by  artillery  and  garrisoned  by 
regular  troops  under  the  command  of  a  brave  and 
capable  soldier.  The  victory  was  not  only  complete,  but 
final.  Clark  had  broken  the  English  campaign  in  the 
West;  he  had  shattered  their  Indian  confederacy,  and 
wrested  from  them  a  region  larger  than  most  European 
kingdoms.  He  had  opened  the  way,  never  to  be  closed 
again,  to  the  advance  of  the  American  pioneers,  the 
vanguard  of  the  American  people  in  their  march  across 
the  continent.  When  the  treaty  of  peace  was  made  at 
Paris,  the  boundary  of  the  United  States  went  to  the 
Lakes  on  the  North,  and  to  the  Mississippi  on  the  West, 
and  that  it  did  so  was  due  to  Clark  and  his  riflemen. 
It  was  one  of  the  sad  questions,  of  which  history  offers 
so  many,  why  the  conqueror  of  Vincennes  never 
reached  again  the  heights  of  achievement  which  he 
attained  in  the  first  flush  of  manhood.  But,  what- 
ever the  answer  may  be,  the  great  deed  that  he  did 
was  one  of  the  glories  of  the  Revolution  which  can 
never  be  dimmed,  and  which  finds  its  lasting  monu- 
ment in  the  vast  country  then  wrested  from  the  British 
crown  by  American  riflemen,  inspired  by  the  brilliant 
leadership  of  George  Rogers  Clark."  * 

1  Lodge,  The  Story  of  the  Revolution,  p.  352. 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       393 

The  achievement  met  with  an  enthusiastic  recep- 
tion from  Patrick  Henry,  who  communicated  the 
event  to  the  Virginia  legislature: 

"  Williamsburg,  November  14,  1778. 

"  Gentlemen, — The  executive  power  of  this  state 
having  been  impressed  with  a  strong  apprehension  of 
incursions  on  the  frontier  settlements  from  the  savages 
situated  about  the  Illinois,  and  supposing  the  danger 
would  be  greatly  obviated  by  an  enterprise  against  the 
English  forts  and  possessions  in  that  country,  which 
were  well  known  to  inspire  the  savages  with  their 
bloody  purposes  against  us,  sent  a  detachment  of  mili- 
tia, consisting  of  one  hundred  and  seventy  or  eighty 
men  commanded  by  Colonel  George  Rogers  Clark,  on 
that  service  some  time  last  spring.  By  dispatches  which 
I  have  just  received  from  Colonel  Clark,  it  appears 
that  his  success  has  equalled  the  most  sanguine  ex- 
pectations. He  has  not  only  reduced  Fort  Chartres 
and  its  dependencies,  but  has  struck  such  a  terror  into 
the  Indian  tribes  between  that  settlement  and  the  lakes 
that  no  less  than  five  of  them,  viz.,  the  Puans,  Sacks, 
Renards,  Powtowantanies,  and  Miamis,  who  had 
received  the  hatchet  from  the  English  emissaries,  have 
submitted  to  our  arms  all  their  English  presents,  and 
bound  themselves  by  treaties  and  promises  to  be  peace- 
ful in  the  future. 

"  The  great  Blackbird,  the  Chappowow  chief,  has 
also  sent  a  belt  of  peace  to  Colonel  Clark,  influenced, 
he  supposes,  by  the  dread  of  Detroit's  being  reduced 
by  Americans'  arms.  This  latter  place,  according  to 
Colonel  Clark's  representation,  is  at  present  defended 
by  so  inconsiderable  a  garrison  and  so  scantily  fur- 
nished with  provisions,  for  which  they  must  be  still 


394  George  Washington 

more  distressed  by  the  loss  of  supplies  from  the  Il- 
linois, that  it  might  be  reduced  by  any  number  of  men 
above  five  hundred.  The  governor  of  that  place,  Mr. 
Hamilton,  was  exerting  himself  to  engage  the  savages 
to  assist  him  in  retaking  the  places  that  had  fallen  into 
our  hands ;  but  the  favorable  impression  made  on  the 
Indians  in  general  in  that  quarter,  the  influence  of  the 
French  on  them,  and  the  reenforcement  of  their  militia 
Colonel  Clark  expected,  flattered  him  that  there  was 
little  danger  to  be  apprehended.  ...  If  the  party 
under  Colonel  Clark  can  cooperate  in  any  respect  with 
the  measures  Congress  are  pursuing  or  have  in  view,  I 
shall  with  pleasure  give  him  the  necessary  orders.  In 
order  to  improve  and  secure  the  advantages  gained  by 
Colonel  Clark,  I  propose  to  support  him  with  a  reen- 
forcement of  militia.  But  this  will  depend  on  the 
pleasure  of  the  assembly,  to  whose  consideration  the 
measure  is  submitted. 

"  The  French  inhabitants  have  manifested  great  zeal 
and  attachment  to  our  cause,  and  insist  on  garrisons 
remaining  with  them  under  Colonel  Clark.  This  I  am 
induced  to  agree  to,  because  the  safety  of  our  own 
frontiers  as  well  as  that  of  these  people  demands  a  com- 
pliance with  this  request.  Were  it  possible  to  secure 
the  St.  Lawrence  and  prevent  the  English  attempts  up 
that  river  by  seizing  some  post  on  it,  peace  with  the 
Indians  would  seem  to  me  to  be  secured. 

"  With  great  regard  I  have  the  honor  to  be,  Gent . , 
"  Your  most  obedient  Servant, 

"  P.  HENRY."  x 

Thus  'was  the  Great  West  saved  to  the  United 
States. 

1  Tyler,  Patrick  Henry,  p.  230. 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       395 

But  peaceful  and  glorious  as  all  things  now 
seemed  to  the  Americans,  the  situation  was  still 
fraught  with  perils.  Washington,  himself,  strikes 
the  keynote  of  it  when  in  January,  1784,  he  writes 
to  Benjamin  Harrison : 

"At  Mount  Vernon. 

"  The  disinclination  of  the  individual  States  to  yield 
competent  powers  to  Congress  for  the  federal  govern- 
ment, their  unreasonable  jealousy  of  that  body  and  of 
one  another,  and  the  disposition,  which  seems  to  per- 
vade each,  of  being  all-wise  and  all-powerful  within 
itself,  will,  if  there  is  not  a  change  in  the  system,  be  our 
downfall  as  a  nation." 

This  bitter  thought  marred  for  him  the  serenity 
of  Mount  Vernon  and  its  expected  happiness,  which 
he  thus  describes  to  the  Marquis  LaFayette : 

"  At  Mount  Vernon. 

"  At  length,  my  dear  Marquis,  I  am  become  a  private 
citizen  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac;  and  under  the 
shadow  of  my  own  vine  and  my  own  fig-tree,  free  from 
the  bustle  of  a  camp,  and  the  busy  scenes  of  public  life, 
I  am  solacing  myself  with  those  tranquil  enjoyments, 
of  which  the  soldier  who  is  ever  in  pursuit  of  fame, 
the  statesman,  whose  watchful  days  and  sleepless  nights 
are  spent  in  devising  schemes  to  promote  the  welfare 
of  his  own,  perhaps  the  ruin  of  other  countries,  as  if 
this  globe  was  insufficient  for  us  all,  and  the  courtier, 
who  is  always  watching  the  countenance  of  his  prince, 
in  hopes  of  catching  a  gracious  smile,  can  have  very 
little  conception." 


396  George  Washington 

Old  habits  pursued  him  amid  his  agricultural 
avocations,  as  he  thus  observes  to  General  Knox : 

"  I  am  just  beginning  to  experience  that  ease  and 
freedom  from  public  cares,  which,  however  desirable, 
takes  some  time  to  realize ;  for,  strange  as  it  may  seem, 
it  is  nevertheless  true,  that  it  was  not  till  lately  I  could 
get  the  better  of  my  usual  custom  of  ruminating,  as 
soon  as  I  waked  in  the  morning,  on  the  business  of  the 
ensuing  day ;  and  of  my  surprise  at  finding,  after  re- 
volving many  things  in  my  mind,  that  I  was  no  longer 
a  public  man,  nor  had  anything  to  do  with  public 
transactions." 

An  eminent  foreigner  seeing  him  at  this  time, 
apparently  nothing  more  than  a  fine  old  Virginia 
gentleman,  writes  thus  to  Rayneval : 

"  The  estate  of  General  Washington  not  being  more 
than  fifteen  leagues  from  Annapolis  I  accepted  an  in- 
vitation that  he  gave  me  to  go  and  pass  several  days 
there,  and  it  is  from  his  house  that  I  have  the  honor  to 
write  to  you.  After  having  seen  him  on  my  arrival  in 
this  continent,  in  the  midst  of  his  camp  and  in  the 
tumult  of  arms,  I  have  the  pleasure  to  see  him  a  simple 
citizen,  enjoying  in  the  repose  of  his  retreat  the  glory 
which  he  has  so  justly  acquired.  .  .  .  He  dresses  in 
a  gray  coat  like  a  Virginia  farmer,  and  nothing  about 
him  recalls  the  recollection  of  the  important  part  which 
he  has  played  except  the  great  number  of  foreigners 
who  come  to  see  him." 

Even  the  venerable  order  of  Masons  took  part 
in  this  simple  life,  and  elected  him  an  honorary 
member  of  Lodge  No.  39,  at  Alexandria,  the  same 


MAJOR-GENERAL  HENRY  KNOX. 
From  the  painting  by  Gilbert  Stuart,  in  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston. 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       397 

year.  His  architectural  instincts,  too,  awoke  viv- 
idly, and  he  began  to  plan  extensions  and  improve- 
ments to  his  beautifully  situated  mansion. 

"  At  this  time  Washington  was  engaged  in  the  pros- 
ecution of  improvements  at  Mount  Vernon,  the  prin- 
cipal being  additions  to  the  house  originally  built  by 
Lawrence  Washington  (1744),  which  was  of  the  old 
gable-roofed  style,  with  only  four  rooms  upon  each 
floor.  It  was  about  one-third  the  size  of  the  present 
building,  and  in  the  alteration  it  was  made  to  occupy 
the  central  portion,  the  two  ends  having  been  built  at 
the  same  time.  The  mansion,  when  completed  by 
General  Washington,  at  the  close  of  1785  (and  as  it 
now  appears),  was  of  the  most  substantial  framework, 
two  stories  in  height,  ninety-six  feet  in  length,  thirty 
feet  in  depth,  with  a  piazza,  fifteen  feet  in  width,  ex- 
tending along  the  eastern  or  river  front."  1 

It  was  difficult,  of  course,  for  so  active  a  mind  to 
settle  down  at  once  from  the  cares  of  command,  the 
thousand  anxieties  and  occupations  of  the  camp,  and 
the  multitudinous  correspondence  with  Congress, 
pursued  through  so  many  years,  and  the  thirty-seven 
volumes  of  his  military  and  private  letters,  now  in 
the  archives  at  Washington,  often  attest  the  actual 
hardships  of  the  "  peaceful  "  life.  A  delightful  visit 
or  two  from  LaFayette  in  1784,  and  the  warm  pub- 
lic congratulations  of  his  native  State;  touring 
around  among  his  estates  in  Virginia,  and  the  wilds 
of  Pennsylvania  rendered  memorable  by  Braddock's 

1  Baker,  Washington  after  the  Revolution,  vol.  ii,  p:  9-10, 


398  George  Washington 

defeat,  during  which  he  waged  war  on  "  squatters  " 
on  his  lands;  horseback  journeys  for  hundreds  of 
miles  to  view  and  review  lands  new  and  old — 
Washington  always  had  an  eye  remarkably  keen 
for  "  bottom  "  lands ;  visits  from  Englishmen  and 
foreigners  of  all  descriptions,  varied  the  idyllic  life 
of  the  statesman,  but  did  not  quell  his  uneasy  fears 
as  to  the  future  of  his  country. 

An  honest  Briton,  dropping  in  accidentally  at  the 
hospitable  mansion  about  this  time,  leaves  an  in- 
teresting picture  of  General  and  Mrs.  Washington : 

"  I  crossed  the  river  from  Maryland  into  Virginia, 
near  to  the  renowned  General  Washington's,  where 
I  had  the  honour  to  spend  some  time,  and  was  kindly 
entertained  with  that  worthy  family.  As  to  the 
General,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  countenance,  he  is 
what  the  world  says  of  him,  a  shrewd,  good-natured, 
plain,  humane  man,  about  fifty-five  years  of  age, 
and  seems  to  wear  well,  being  healthful  and  active, 
straight,  well  made,  and  about  six  feet  high.  He 
keeps  a  good  table,  which  is  always  open  to  those 
of  a  genteel  appearance.  He  does  not  use  many 
Frenchified  congees,  or  flattering  useless  words  with- 
out meaning,  which  savours  more  of  deceit  than  an 
honest  heart ;  but  on  the  contrary,  his  words  seem  to 
point  at  truth  and  reason,  and  to  spring  from  the 
fountain  of  a  heart,  which  being  good  of  itself,  cannot 
be  suspicious  of  others,  till  facts  unriddle  designs, 
which  evidently  appeared  to  me  by  a  long  tale  that 
he  told  me  about  Arnold's  manoeuvres,  far-fetched 
schemes,  and  deep-laid  designs,  to  give  him  and  his 
army  up,  above  a  month  before  the  affair  happened; 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       399 

and  though  he  said  he  wondered  at  many  things  that 
he  observed  in  Arnold's  conduct,  yet  he  had  not  the 
least  suspicion  of  any  treachery  going  on,  till  the 
thing  happened,  and  then  he  could  trace  back  and 
see  through  his  intentions  from  the  beginning;  which, 
from  the  General's  behaviour  to  him,  I  am  well  ap- 
prized, seems  to  be  the  highest  sin  of  ingratitude  that 
a  man  could  be  guilty  of. 

"  The  General's  house  is  rather  warm,  snug,  con- 
venient, and  useful,  than  ornamental.  The  size  is 
what  ought  to  suit  a  man  of  about  two  or  three  thou- 
sand a  year  in  England.  The  out-offices  are  good, 
and  seem  to  be  not  long  built;  and  he  was  making 
more  offices  at  each  wing  to  the  front  of  the  house 
which  added  more  to  ornament  than  real  use.  The 
situation  is  high,  and  commands  a  beautiful  prospect 
of  the  river  which  parts  Virginia  and  Maryland,  but 
in  other  respects  the  situation  seems  to  be  out  of  the 
world,  being  chiefly  surrounded  by  woods,  and  far 
from  any  great  road  or  thoroughfare,  and  nine  miles 
from  Alexandria  in  Virginia.  The  General's  lady  is 
a  hearty,  comely,  discreet,  affable  woman,  some  few 
years  older  than  himself;  she  was  a  widow  when  he 
married  her.  He  has  no  children  by  her.  The  Gen- 
eral's house  is  open  to  poor  travellers  as  well  as  rich ; 
he  gives  diet  and  lodging  to  all  that  come  that  way, 
which  indeed  cannot  be  many,  without  they  go  out 
of  their  way  on  purpose.  .  .  . 

"  I  have  travelled  and  seen  a  great  deal  of  the 
world,  have  conversed  with  all  degrees  of  people,  and 
have  remarked  that  there  are  only  two  persons  in  the 
world  which  have  every  one's  good  word,  and  those 
are — the  Queen  of  England  and  General  Washing- 


4OO  George  Washington 

ton,  which  I  never  heard  friend  or  foe  speak  slightly 
of."  J 

Difficulties  of  language  made  no  difficulty  to 
admiring  foreigners,  who  occasionally  addressed 
Washington  in  an  idiom  all  their  own.  Thus,  one 
of  the  minor  German  potentates  writes  at  this  time : 

"  MY  GENERAL  AND  MY  HERO. — I  have  just  re- 
ceived your  picture,  and  I  am  entirely  taken  up  to  give 
it  a  sufficient  embellishment  by  placing  it  between  the 
King  of  Prussia  and  his  illustrious  brother  Henry. 
You  see  that  this  is  a  trio  very  harmonical.  ...  It 
must  be  that  the  picture  resembles,  for  I  regard  it  as 
the  greatest  ornament  of  my  fortress." 

A  charming  trait  of  the  General's  solicitude  for 
his  guests  crops  out  in  the  writings  of  a  traveller 
and  diarist  of  the  times : 

"  I  had  feasted  my  imagination  for  several  days  in 
the  near  prospect  of  a  visit  to  Mount  Vernon,  the  seat 
of  Washington.  No  pilgrim  ever  approached  Mecca 
with  deeper  enthusiasm.  I  arrived  there,  in  the  after- 
noon of  January  23d  [  ?]  '85.  ...  I  found  him  at  table 
with  Mrs.  Washington  and  his  private  family,  and 
was  received  in  the  native  dignity  and  with  that  ur- 
banity so  peculiarly  combined  in  the  character  of  a 
soldier  and  eminent  private  gentleman.  He  soon  put 
me  at  ease,  by  unbending  in  a  free  and  affable  con- 
versation. .  .  . 

"  The  first  evening  I  spent  under  the  wing  of  his 
hospitality,  we  sat  a  full  hour  at  table  by  ourselves, 

1  Varlo,  Floating  Ideas  of  Nature,  suited  to  the  Philosopher, 
Farmer,  and  Mechanic. — Published  in  London,  in  1796. 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       401 

without  the  least  interruption,  after  the  family  had 
retired.  I  was  extremely  oppressed  by  a  severe  cold 
and  excessive  coughing,  contracted  by  the  exposure 
of  a  harsh  winter  journey.  He  pressed  me  to  use 
some  remedies,  but  I  declined  doing  so.  As  usual 
after  retiring,  my  coughing  increased.  When  some 
time  had  elapsed,  the  door  of  my  room  was  gently 
opened,  and  on  drawing  my  bed-curtains,  to  my  utter 
astonishment,  I  beheld  Washington  himself,  standing 
at  my  bed-side,  with  a  bowl  of  hot  tea  in  his  hand."  l 

Washington,  standing  with  a  cup  of  hot  tea  in 
his  hand  at  the  bedside  of  a  suffering  guest,  is  a 
pleasant  pendant  to  the  Washington  of  the  ser- 
pentine walks,  the  fragrant  shrubberies,  the  old- 
fashioned  climbing  roses,  and  tree-planting  instincts, 
who  beautified  the  old-world  gardens  of  Mount 
Vernon,  stocked  its  parks  with  deer,  enriched  the 
neighbourhood  with  a  fine  breed  of  French  stag- 
hounds,  and  bred  "  burros  "  from  "  Jacks  and  Jen- 
nies "  presented  by  his  most  Catholic  Majesty,  the 
King  of  Spain. 

"  Gliding  gently  down  the  stream  of  life  "  as  he 
might,  in  his  oft-repeated  phrase,  consider  himself 
to  be,  the  gently-flowing  stream,  however,  was  still 
to  be  interrupted  by  many  a  sudden  twist  and  turn, 
perilous  fall,  and  world  of  troubled  waters.  The 
first  intimation  of  it  occurs  in  his  oft-returning 
dread  of  a  dissolving  Union,  now  that  the  main 
object  of  that  Union,  Independence,  had  been 
achieved,  and  the  sovereignty  of  each  individual 

1  Memoirs  of  Elkanah  Watson. 


4O2  George  Washington 

State  began,  with  implacable  obstinacy,  to  assert 
itself. 

Here,  precisely  as,  in  the  Germany  and  the  Italy 
of  our  day  and  of  all  days,  Prussian  contended  with 
Bavarian,  Hanoverian  with  Prussian  and  Saxon, 
and  Wiirtemberger  with  Rhinelander,  Tuscan  with 
Roman,  so  in  "  the  brave  old  days  of  '76,"  the 
men  of  Connecticut  and  the  men  of  New  York, 
the  burghers  of  Jersey  and  the  Quakers  of  Penn- 
sylvania, the  Puritans  of  Massachusetts  and  the 
cavaliers  of  Virginia  and  Maryland  began,  after 
Yorktown,  to  eye  each  other  with  mutual  jealousy 
and  distrust;  odious  nicknames  were  freely  flung 
by  one  section  at  another;  unbounded  and,  it  may 
be  added,  unfounded  claims  began  to  be  set  up  by 
Eastern  States  to  the  millions  of  fertile  acres  of 
the  unexplored  West;  the  disbanded  armies  of  the 
Revolution,  turned  loose  and  now  foot-free,  began 
to  demand  more  pay  for  their  unrequited  services, 
band  together,  and  excite  insurrection;  retaliatory 
duties  between  the  States  were  in  danger  of  being 
enacted  if  not  actually  begun,  "  free  trade  "  States 
and  "  tariff "  States  were  about  to  spring  into 
existence,  and  plague,  pestilence,  and  famine  were 
threatened. 

Indeed,  the  few  years  from  the  Treaty  of  Paris 
to  the  adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  in 
1788,  were  the  most  critical  in  the  whole  history 
of  American  Independence. 

Affairs  at  this  juncture  are  graphically  depicted 
by  a  recent  historian: 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       403 

''  The  open   contempt   with   which,   in   all   parts   of 
the  country,  the  people  treated  the  recommendation 
of  Congress  concerning  the  refugees  and  the  payment 
of  the  debts,  was  no  more  than  any  man  of  ordinary 
sagacity  could  have  foretold.     Indeed,  the  state  into 
which  Congress  had  fallen  was  most  wretched.  Rudely 
formed  amid  the  agonies  of  a  revolution,  the  Con- 
federation had  never  been  revised  and  brought  nearer 
to  perfection  in  a  season  of  tranquillity,     Each  of  the 
thirteen  States  the  Union  bound  together  retained  all 
the  rights  of  sovereignty,  and  asserted  them  punctil- 
iously against  the  central  government.    Each  reserved 
to  itself  the  right  to  put  up  mints,  to  strike  money,  to 
levy  taxes,  to  raise  armies,  to  say  what  articles  should 
come  into  its  ports  free  and  what  should  be  made  to 
pay  duty.     Toward  the  Continental  Government  they 
acted  precisely  as  if  they  were  dealing  with  a  foreign 
power.     In  truth,  one  of  the  truest  patriots  of  New 
England  had  not  been  ashamed  to  stand  up  in  his 
place  in  the   Massachusetts   House  of   Deputies   and 
speak  of  the  Congress  of  the  States  as  a  foreign  gov- 
ernment.     Every   act   of   that   body   was    scrutinized 
with  the  utmost  care.    The  transfer  of  the  most  trivial 
authority  beyond  the  borders  of  the  State  was  made 
with    protestations,    with    trembling,    and    with    fear. 
Under  such  circumstances,  each  delegate  felt  himself 
to  have  much  the  character,  and  to  be  clothed  with 
very  much  of  the  power,  of  ambassadors.     He  was 
not  responsible  to  men,  he  was  responsible  to  a  State. 
The  opinions  which  he  expressed,  the  measures  which 
he   advanced,   were   not  those   of  a   great  party,   nor 
even  such  as  found  favor  among  the  men  of  his  own 
district  or  of  his  own  town.     They  were  such  as  he 


404  George  Washington 

believed  to  be  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  a  major- 
ity of  the  members  of  that  Legislature  which  had  sent 
him  to  the  post  he  filled.  To  him  the  smallest  interest 
of  the  little  patch  of  earth  he  called  his  native  State 
was  of  far  more  importance  than  the  greatest  interest 
of  the  Confederation  of  States."  1 

The  distractions  of  the  times  were  further  en- 
hanced by  the  rude  treatment  of  the  Tories,  100,000 
of  whom,  it  is  reckoned,  were  driven  out  of  the 
country  between  1783  and  1785,  despite  the  most 
solemn  treaty  obligation.  Repudiation  of  the 
$170,000,000,  which  Jefferson  calculated  the  war 
had  cost,  was  threatened.  Whole  neighbourhoods 
were  depopulated  by  the  disfranchisement  of  loyal- 
ists. A  war  of  pamphlets,  sermons,  broadsides, 
newspaper  scurrilities,  under  the  leadership  of  clas- 
sically named  "  Phocions,"  "  Brutuses,"  and  "Men- 
tors," fired  the  colonial  empire  from  one  end  to 
the  other.  Private  obligations  and  public  cove- 
nants, international  law — "  that  refuge  of  highway- 
men and  robbers,"  as  Voltaire  called  it — and  mu- 
nicipal and  State  responsibilities  were  alike  threat- 
ened. Shay's  Rebellion  broke  out  in  Massachusetts, 
in  resistance  to  the  weak  federal  authority,  and, 
but  for  the  timely  energy  and  patriotism  of  General 
Lincoln  and  the  men  of  Massachusetts,  who  crushed 
it  mercilessly,  would  have  swamped  the  Union  or 
cleft  it  in  pieces*  "  In  a  letter  to  Washington, 

1  McMaster,  History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States, 
vol.  i,  p.  130. 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       405 

General  Knox  observes,"  says  McMaster,  "  that  no 
toasts  were  drunk  in  the  army  but  '  A  hoop  to  the 
barrel '  and  '  Cement  to  the  Union.' ' 

A  hoopless  barrel,  an  uncemented  Union,  it 
seemed  really  to  be. 

Added  to  all  this  was  the  confusion  worse  con- 
founded which  reigned  in  the  currency.  Even  when 
people  were  ready  and  willing  to  pay  their  just 
debts,  it  was  almost  impossible  to  do  so,  without  a 
dictionary  in  many  tongues  at  one's  elbow,  able  to 
interpret  the  miscellaneous  contents  of  the  moth- 
eaten  stockings  which,  in  1784,  took  the  place  of 
a  natural  and  national  currency.  The  antiquary  of 
to-day  would  find  the  coins  of  the  Revolution  only 
in  junk-shops,  in  out-of-the-way  corners  of  mu- 
seums, or  in  private  cabinets,  and  would  take  curi- 
ous delight  in  deciphering  the  blurred  images  and 
superscriptions  on  the  golden  "  Joes,"  guineas,  and 
moidores,  the  silver  "  bits,"  "  pistareens,"  shillings, 
picayunes,  and  mill-dollars  of  the  Spanish  and  New 
England  coasts,  and,  above  all,  the  comical  "  shin- 
plasters  "  and  faded  paper,  telling  in  grandiloquent 
language  how  such  and  such  a  scrap  of  disreputable 
rag-money,  marked  with  some  strange  device,  was 
worth  so-and-so  in  "  Continental  "  currency.  There 
were  five  different  values  to  a  "  dollar,"  and  as 
many  to  shillings.  To  this  day,  the  mountain  peo- 
ple of  Virginia  rudely  reckon  in  shillings  (16^3 
cents),  "  nine-pences  "  (i2l/2),  and  "  four-pences," 
and  "  bits  "  and  "  picayunes  "  form  staples  of  cur- 


406  George  Washington 

rency  in  New  Orleans  and  the  Gulf  States.  Clipping 
and  counterfeiting  were  rife. 

Out  of  this  anarchy  of  the  counting-room,  Gou- 
verneur  Morris  drew  the  Union,  by  his  organisation 
of  the  money  system  on  its  present  decimal  system 
of  dimes  and  dollars. 

At  this  point,  critical  enough  in  the  history  of 
the  United  States,  the  inland  navigation  scheme  of 
Washington,  Madison,  and  their  friends — a  scheme 
by  which  the  waters  of  the  Chesapeake,  the  Po- 
tomac, and  the  James  were  to  be  connected  by  canals 
with  the  territories  of  the  West — came  into  promi- 
nence and,  merely  local  at  first,  wrought  itself  into 
the  favour  first  of  Virginia  and  Maryland,  then  at- 
tracted the  interest  of  Delaware,  Pennsylvania,  and 
New  York,  and  at  last,  as  recent  historians  like 
Fiske  and  McMaster  have  remarked,  became  the 
germ  of  the  new  Federal  Union  of  1787-88,  and 
the  true  foundation  of  the  United  States  as  they 
exist  to-day. 

Washington,  perhaps  the  best  practical  geogra- 
pher of  the  time, — better  even  than  Peter  Jefferson, 
father  of  the  President, — who  had  constructed  a 
valuable  map  of  Virginia,  was  thoroughly  familiar 
by  actual  observation  with  most  of  this  Western 
country,  and  seeing  it  filling  up  rapidly  as  "  Ohio," 
"  Kentucky,"  "  Franklin,"  and  other  incipient 
States,  with  a  tide  of  immigration  from  the  East, 
recognised  the  necessity  of  the  vast  scheme  of  in- 
ternal communication,  later  realised  in  the  James 
River  and  Kanawha  Canal,  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       407 

Canal,    the    National    Road    from    Cumberland   to 
Jefferson  City,  and  other  connecting  schemes. 

His  alert  mind  was  again  turned  at  this  time  to  a 
plan  for  draining  and  reclaiming  the  Dismal  Swamp ; 
but  it  was  the  Potomac  scheme,  with  the  regulation 
of  the  trade  relations  between  Maryland  and  Vir- 
ginia, which  drew  him  to  bring  the  matter  before 
the  Virginia  legislature,  and  induce  it  to  arrange  a 
commercial  convention  with  Maryland,  to  meet  at 
Annapolis. 

"  To  RICHARD  HENRY  LEE 

"  The  Assemblies  of  Virginia  and  Maryland  have 
now  under  consideration  the  extension  of  the  inland 
navigation  of  the  rivers  Potomac  and  James,  and 
opening  a  communication  between  them  and  the 
western  waters.  They  seem  fully  impressed  with  the 
political  as  well  as  the  commercial  advantages,  which 
would  result  from  the  accomplishment  of  these  great 
objects,  and  I  hope  will  embrace  the  present  moment 
to  put  them  in  a  train  for  execution." 

To  LaFayette  he  wrote  as  follows: 

"  I  am  here  since  December  20  with  General  Gates, 
at  the  request  of  the  Assembly  of  Virginia  to  fix  mat- 
ters with  the  Assembly  of  this  State  respecting  the 
extension  of  the  inland  navigation  of  the  Potomac, 
and  the  communication  beween  it  and  the  western 
waters." 

Madison  eagerly  seconded  Washington's  plan  and, 
two  years  later,  matters  came  to  a  head. 

"  The  commissioners,  after  preparing  the  terms  of 
a  compact  between  Virginia  and  Maryland  for  the 


408  George  Washington 

jurisdiction  over  the  waters  of  the  Chesapeake  Bay 
and  the  rivers  that  were  common  to  both  States,  took 
up  matters  of  general  policy,  and  decided  to  recom- 
mend to  the  two  States  a  uniformity  of  duties  on  im- 
ports, a  uniformity  of  commercial  regulations,  and  a 
uniformity  of  currency.  From  this  resulted  (January, 
1786)  a  proposition  from  Virginia,  that  a  convention 
from  all  the  States  should  be  held  to  regulate  the 
restrictions  on  commerce  for  the  whole,  the  commis- 
sioners to  meet  at  Annapolis  on  the  first  Monday  in 
September,  1786.  The  invitations  to  the  States  were 
made  through  the  executive  of  Virginia,  although 
Maryland  had  made  (December,  1785)  the  first  move 
in  the  matter."  * 

The  beneficent  schemes  of  the  ex-commander,  in 
preparing  to  drain  swamps  and  canalise  rivers  for 
the  good  of  his  people,  may  have  reached  the  alert 
ear  of  Goethe,  open  to  all  contemporary  impressions, 
and  woven  themselves  with  the  complicated  fabric  of 
the  second  part  of  Faust.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  Con- 
vention soon  to  meet  was  a  fixed  fact,  a  fact  more 
significant  than  any  event  which  had  yet  occurred 
in  America  except  the  Declaration  and  achieve- 
ment of  Independence,  the  one  supreme  fact  indeed 
by  which  the  whole  business  was  to  be  signed  and 
sealed.  Imminent  enough  was  the  danger  that  if 
passions  ran  high  enough,  a  great  State  like  Vir- 
ginia, then  numbering  700,000  inhabitants,  might 
attack  a  small  State  like  Delaware  or  Rhode  Island 
(numbering  only  70,000).  North  Carolina  and  its 

1  Baker,  Washington  after  the  Revolution,  vol.  ii,  p.  27. 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       409 

new-born  child,  the  so-called  State  of  "  Franklin," 
were  already  at  daggers  drawn.  The  beautiful 
Vale  of  the  Wyoming,  celebrated  in  song  and  story, 
had  already  run  crimson  with  the  good  blood  of 
Pennsylvania  and  Connecticut ;  and  New  York  and 
New  Jersey,  separated  only  by  a  streak  of  silver 
water,  glared  at  each  other  over  the  chasm  in  a  state 
of  acute  tariff  exasperation. 

It  was  indeed  high  time  to  call  a  halt,  to  dissolve 
the  impotent  "  League  of  Friendship  "  as  the  first 
confederation  was  called,  recombine  it  into  a  strong 
federal  power  on  constitutional  principles,  and  en- 
dow it  with  the  strength  necessary  to  govern  firmly 
a  great  empire,  threatening  at  any  moment  to  go  to 
pieces  for  lack  of  centralisation.  A  government, 
"  one  to-day,  thirteen  to-morrow,"  as  one  expressed 
it,  could  not  continue  on  so  unstable  a  foundation. 
Judge  Marshall,  the  weightiest  biographer  of  Wash- 
ington, known  as  the  great  expounder  of  the  Con- 
stitution, quotes  LaFayette's  anxious  words  to  the 
General  at  this  time: 

"  I  wish,"  he  added,  "  the  other  sentiments  I  have 
had  occasion  to  discover  with  respect  to  America,  were 
equally  satisfactory  with  those  that  are  personal  to 
yourself.  I  need  not  say  that  the  spirit,  the  firmness, 
with  which  the  revolution  was  conducted,  has  excited 
universal  admiration.  .  .  .  That  every  friend  to  the 
rights  of  mankind  is  an  enthusiast  for  the  principles 
on  which  those  constitutions  are  built.  .  .  .  But  I  have 
often  had  the  mortification  to  hear,  that  the  want  of 
powers  in  congress,  of  union  between  the  States,  of 


4io  George  Washing-ton 

energy  in  their  government,  would  make  the  con- 
federation very  insignificant.  By  their  conduct  in 
the  revolution,  the  citizens  of  America  have  com- 
manded the  respect  of  the  world ;  but  it  grieves  me 
to  think  they  will  in  a  measure  lose  it,  unless  they 
strengthen  the  confederation,  give  congress  power  to 
regulate  their  trade,  pay  off  their  debt,  or  at  least  the 
interest  of  it,  establish  a  well  regulated  militia,  and, 
in  a  word,  complete  all  those  measures  which  you  have 
recommended  to  them." 

"  Unhappily  for  us,"  said  the  General  in  reply, 
"  though  the  reports  you  mention  are  greatly  exag- 
gerated, our  conduct  has  laid  the  foundation  for  them. 
It  is  one  of  the  evils  of  democratic  governments,  that 
the  people,  not  always  seeing,  and  frequently  misled, 
must  often  feel  before  they  act  right.  But  evils  of 
this  nature  seldom  fail  to  work  their  own  cure.  It  is 
to  be  lamented  nevertheless,  that  the  remedies  are  so 
slow,  and  that  those  who  wish  to  apply  them  season- 
ably, are  not  attended  to  before  they  suffer  in  person, 
in  interest,  and  in  reputation.  I  am  not  without  hopes 
that  matters  will  soon  take  a  favourable  turn  in  the 
federal  constitution.  The  discerning  part  of  the  com- 
munity have  long  since  seen  the  necessity  of  giving 
adequate  powers  to  congress  for  national  purposes, 
and  those  of  a  different  description  must  yield  to  it 
ere  long."  1 

All  these  dangers,  growing  out  of  what  Marshall 
calls  "  the  miserably  defective  organization  of  the 
government,"  at  last  swept  to  a  conclusion — the 
birth  of  the  Republic,  which  Marshall  in  his  weighty 
manner  thus  sketches : 

1  Marshall,  The  Life  of  George  Washington,  vol.  v,  p.  73. 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       411 

"Measures  were  taken  in  Virginia,  which,  though 
they  originated  in  different  views,  terminated  in  a 
proposition  for  a  general  convention  to  revise  the  state 
of  the  union. 

'  To  form  a  compact  relative  to  the  navigation  of 
the  rivers  Potomac  and  Pocomoke,  and  of  part  of  the 
bay  of  Chesapeak,  by  the  citizens  of  Virginia  and 
Maryland,  commissioners  were  appointed  by  the  leg- 
islatures of  those  states  respectively,  who  assembled 
at  Alexandria  in  March,  1785.  While  at  Mount  Ver- 
non  on  a  visit,  they  agreed  to  propose  to  their  res- 
pective governments,  the  appointment  of  other  com- 
missioners, with  power  to  make  conjoint  arrange- 
ments, to  which  the  assent  of  congress  was  to  be 
solicited,  for  maintaining  a  naval  force  in  the  Chesa- 
peak. The  commissioners  were  also  to  be  empowered 
to  establish  a  tariff  of  duties  on  imports,  to  which  the 
laws  of  both  states  should  conform.  When  these  pro- 
positions received  the  assent  of  the  legislature  of  Vir- 
ginia, an  additional  resolution  was  passed,  directing 
that  which  respected  the  duties  on  imports  to  be  com- 
municated to  all  the  states  in  the  union,  who  were 
invited  to  send  deputies  to  the  meeting. 

"  On  the  2ist  of  January,  1786,  a  few  days  after 
the  passage  of  these  resolutions,  another  was  adopted 
appointing  certain  commissioners,  who  were  to  meet 
such  as  might  be  appointed  by  the  other  states  in  the 
union,  at  a  time  and  place  to  be  agreed  on,  to  take 
into  consideration  the  trade  of  the  United  States;  to 
examine  the  relative  situation  and  trade  of  the  said 
states;  to  consider  how  far  a  uniform  system  in  their 
commercial  relations  may  be  necessary  to  their  com- 
mon interest,  and  their  permanent  harmony ;  and  to 


412  George  Washington 

report  to  the  several  states  such  an  act  relative  to 
this  great  object,  as  when  unanimously  ratified  by 
them,  will  enable  the  United  States  in  congress  as- 
sembled effectually  to  provide  for  the  same."  1 

The  committee  met  and  five  States  sent  com- 
missioners, among  whom  was  Washington  from 
Virginia.  Questions  of  such  import  to  the  whole 
country  developed  at  the  minor  convention,  that  it 
was  determined  to  convene  a  general  body  to  revise 
the  entire  Federal  system.  The  place  set  was  Phila- 
delphia, the  time,  May  2,  1787.  The  delegates  were 
to  be  appointed  by  the  State  legislature: 

Madison  says : 

"  It  has  been  thought  advisable  to  give  this  subject 
a  very  solemn  dress,  and  all  the  weight  which  could 
be  derived  from  a  single  state.  This  idea  will  also 
be  pursued  in  the  selection  of  characters  to  represent 
Virginia  in  the  federal  convention.  You  will  infer 
our  earnestness  on  this  point,  from  the  liberty  which 
will  be  used  of  placing  your  name  at  the  head  of 
them.  How  far  this  liberty  may  correspond  with  the 
ideas  by  which  you  ought  to  be  governed,  will  be  best 
decided  where  it  must  ultimately  be  decided.  In  every 
event  it  will  assist  powerfully  in  marking  the  zeal  of 
our  legislature,  and  its  opinion  of  the  magnitude  of 
the  occasion." 

"  Although,"  said  the  General  in  reply,  "  I  have  bid 
a  public  adieu  to  the  public  walks  of  life,  and  had  re- 
solved never  more  to  tread  that  theatre;  yet,  if  upon 
an  occasion  so  interesting  to  the  well  being  of  the 

1  Marshall,  The  Life  of  George  Washington,  vol.  v,  p.  91. 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       413 

confederacy,  it  had  been  the  wish  of  the  assembly 
that  I  should  be  an  associate  in  the  business  of  re- 
vising the  federal  system,  I  should  from  a  sense  of  the 
obligation  I  am  under  for  repeated  proofs  of  confi- 
dence in  me,  more  than  from  any  opinion  I  could  en- 
tertain of  my  usefulness,  have  obeyed  its  call;  but  it 
is  now  out  of  my  power  to  do  this  with  any  degree 
of  consistency  .  .  .  the  cause  I  will  mention. 

"  I  presume  you  heard  sir,  that  I  was  first  ap- 
pointed, and  have  since  been  rechosen  president  of  the 
society  of  the  Cincinnati ;  and  you  may  have  understood 
also,  that  the  triennial  general  meeting  of  this  body  is 
to  be  held  in  Philadelphia  the  first  monday  in  May  next. 
Some  particular  reasons  combining  with  the  peculiar 
situation  of  my  private  concerns,  the  necessity  of  pay- 
ing attention  to  them,  a  wish  for  retirement  and  re- 
laxation from  public  cares,  and  rheumatic  pains  which 
I  begin  to  feel  very  sensibly,  induced  me  on  the  3ist 
ultimo,  to  address  a  circular  letter  to  each  state  soci- 
ety, informing  them  of  my  intention  not  to  be  at  the 
next  meeting,  and  of  my  desire  not  to  be  rechosen 
president.  The  vice  -  president  is  also  informed  of 
this,  that  the  business  of  the  society  may  not  be  im- 
peded by  my  absence.  Under  these  circumstances,  it 
will  readily  be  perceived  that  I  could  not  appear  at 
the  same  time  and  place  on  any  other  occasion,  with- 
out giving  offence  to  a  very  respectable  and  deserv- 
ing part  of  the  community  .  .  .  the  late  officers  of  the 
American  army."  1 

Jay,  Hamilton,  Governor  Randolph  of  Virginia 
besieged  Washington  with  letters,  entreating  him 

1  Marshall,  The  Life  of  George  Washington,  vol.  v,  p.  98. 


414  George  Washington 

to  accept  his  unanimous  election  as  head  of  the  Vir- 
ginia delegation,  "  the  last  hope  of  the  Union,"  says 
Marshall,  "  summoned  by  the  united  voice  of  a  con- 
tinent "  again  to  save  his  country. 

Washington  had  almost  literally  to  be  dragged 
from  his  retirement  at  Mount  Vernon,  put  on  horse- 
back— sent  to  Philadelphia,  where  as  the  representa- 
tive of  federalism  he  was  to  play  a  most  impressive 
part  during  the  four  and  a  half  months'  service  of 
the  Convention.  He  was  himself  the  living  incar- 
nation of  the  principles  enunciated  in  his  remark- 
able Circular  Letter  to  the  governors  of  the  States, 
when  he  laid  down  his  sword,  strong  for  federal 
authority,  for  the  observance  of  all  debt  obligations, 
foreign  and  domestic,  for  the  sanctity  of  treaties, 
for  the  necessity  of  well-defined  executive,  judiciary, 
and  legislative  functions  under  republican  forms  of 
government. 

Many  of  the  eminent  luminaries  of  the  law  and 
of  learning  were  already  among  the  ninety-one 
members  of  the  Federal  Congress  which  had  now 
continuously  been  in  session  for  nearly  a  decade; 
but  enough  remained  to  constitute  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  bodies  ever  assembled  to  discuss  mat- 
ters of  the  last  importance  to  the  existence  of  a 
State.  Among  these  were  Washington  (Jefferson 
was  in  France),  Madison,  Rufus  King,  Roger 
Sherman,  Alexander  Hamilton,  Livingston,  Frank- 
lin, Robert  Morris,  Mifflin,  Gouverneur  Morris, 
John  Dickinson,  Daniel  Carroll,  George  Mason, 
Governor  Randolph,  Williamson  (of  North  Car- 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       415 

olina),  Rutledge,  the  two  Pinckneys,  and  Pierce 
Butler. 

By  unanimous  decision,  Washington  was  escorted 
to  the  chair.  The  members  were  bound  over  to  ab- 
solute secrecy ;  but  James  Madison  kept  a  full  private 
journal  of  the  proceedings,  and  this,  published  nearly 
fifty  years  after  the  assembling  of  the  Convention, 
sheds  intensely  interesting  light  on  the  genesis  of 
the  original  seven  articles  of  the  Constitution,  as 
this  Convention  framed  them.  Other  members  (C. 
Pinckney,  Ruf  us  King,  W.  Pierce,  and  Robert  Yates) 
kept  imperfect  journals  of  the  events  of  the  meeting, 
one  of  them  particularly  rich  in  pen-pictures  of  the 
members;  but  Madison's  explicit  work  takes  the 
palm  for  fulness  and  accuracy,  and  reveals  the  fu- 
ture President's  profound  influence  in  moulding  the 
great  but  simple  outlines  on  which  the  Constitution 
was  built. 

Washington,  as  might  be  expected,  scrupulously 
observing  the  injunction  to  secrecy,  as  copious  as  he 
usually  is  in  his  printed  journals  on  all  important 
matters  pertaining  to  his  life,  lets  hardly  a  word 
fall  about  the  doings  of  the  meeting. 

The  extreme  importance  which  Madison  himself 
attached  to  his  Notes  may  be  gathered  from  a  clause 
in  his  will : 

"  Considering  the  peculiarity  and  magnitude  of  the 
occasion  which  produced  the  Convention  at  Phila- 
delphia in  1787,  the  Characters  who  composed  it,  the 
Constitution  which  resulted  from  their  deliberations, 
its  effects  during  a  trial  of  so  many  years  on  the  pros- 


416  George   Washing-ton 

perity  of  the  people  living  under  it,  and  the  interest  it 
has  inspired  among  the  friends  of  free  Government,  it 
is  not  an  unreasonable  inference  that  a  careful  and 
extended  report  of  the  proceedings  and  discussions  of 
that  body,  which  were  with  closed  doors,  by  a  member 
who  was  constant  in  his  attendance,  will  be  particularly 
gratifying  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  to  all 
who  take  an  interest  in  the  progress  of  political  science 
and  the  course  of  true  liberty.  It  is  my  desire  that  the 
Report  as  made  by  me  should  be  published  under  her 
[Mrs.  Madison's]  authority  and  direction."1 

The  good  old  city  of  Philadelphia  had  never  seen 
a  more  striking  group  of  statesmen  gathered  in  its 
broad,  straight  streets,  and  pleasant  colonial  man- 
sions, than  during  the  long,  hot  summer  of  1787. 
Every  question  connected  with  the  formation  of  a 
representative  plan  of  government,  republican  or 
monarchical,  despotic  or  free;  every  question  that 
human  ingenuity,  re-enforced  by  suspicion,  caution, 
or  the  example  of  past  ages,  connected  with  execu- 
tive, judiciary,  or  legislative  branches  of  govern- 
ment; bases  of  popular  representation,  proportional 
representation,  veto  power,  war  powers,  treaty 
powers,  balance  of  powers  between  the  triangle  of 
President,  Supreme  Court,  and  Congress;  even  the 
age  of  representatives,  (twenty-five,)  of  senators, 
(thirty,)  and  of  presidents,  (thirty- five,)  were  en- 
tered into  with  a  zest  and  infinity  of  detail  which 
fixed,  once  and  for  ever,  the  profile  outline  of  a  vast 

1  Writings  of  fames  Madison,  vol.  iii,  p.  xi. 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       417 

picture,  afterwards  to  be  filled  out  by  the  wisdom  of 
succeeding  generations,  nor  were  currency  questions 
or  a  National  University  forgotten. 

Slowly  "  the  federal  pyramid "  (as  one  of  the 
members  strikingly  called  it)  emerged  from  the 
seething  waters  of  the  "  Virginia  Plan,"  the  "  South 
Carolina  Plan,"  and  the  visionary  schemes  and  plans 
of  members  wrho  abhorred  "  the  fetish  of  monarchy," 
and  shrank,  with  Franklin,  "  from  the  natural  in- 
clination which  all  have  for  kingly  government " ; 
and  when,  at  last,  the  i/th  of  September  rolled 
around,  the  venerable  philosopher,  now  in  his 
eighty-third  year,  rose  in  his  place  and,  through 
his  friend  Wilson,  read  a  paper  so  full  of  good 
sense  and  picturesque  humour  on  the  compromise 
nature  of  all  such  epoch-making  documents  as  the 
Constitution,  that  all  signed  it  except  two  or  three 
delegates,  including  Mason  and  Randolph  of  Vir- 
ginia. 

"  MR.  PRESIDENT  : 

"  I  confess  that  there  are  several  parts  of  this  con- 
stitution which  I  do  not  at  present  approve,  but  I  am 
not  sure  I  shall  never  approve  them :  For  having  lived 
long,  I  have  experienced  many  instances  of  being 
obliged  by  better  information  or  fuller  consideration,  to 
change  opinions  even  on  important  subjects,  which  I 
once  thought  right,  but  found  to  be  otherwise.  It  is 
therefore  that  the  older  I  grow,  the  more  apt  I  am 
to  doubt  my  own  judgment,  and  to  pay  more  respect 
to  the  judgment  of  others.  Most  men  indeed  as  well 
as  most  sects  in  Religion  think  themselves  in  pos- 


4i 8  George  Washington 

session  of  all  truth,  and  that  wherever  others  differ 
from  them  it  is  so  far  error.  Steele  a  Protestant  in 
a  Dedication  tells  the  Pope,  that  the  only  difference 
between  our  Churches  in  their  opinions  of  the  certain- 
ty of  their  doctrines  is,  the  Church  of  Rome  is  infalli- 
ble and  the  Church  of  England  is  never  in  the  wrong. 
But  though  many  private  persons  think  almost  as 
highly  of  their  own  infallibility  as  of  that  of  their  sect, 
few  express  it  so  naturally  as  a  certain  French  lady, 
who  in  a  dispute  with  her  sister,  said  '  I  don't  know 
how  it  happens,  Sister,  but  I  meet  with  nobody  but 
myself,  that  is  always  in  the  right — //  n'y  a  que  moi 
qui  ai  toujours  raison.' 

"  In  these  .sentiments,  Sir,  I  agree  to  this  Consti- 
tution with  all  its  faults,  if  they  are  such ;  because  I 
think  a  general  Government  necessary  for  us,  and 
there  is  no  form  of  Government  but  what  may  be  a 
blessing  to  the  people  if  well  administered,  and  believe 
farther  that  this  is  likely  to  be  well  administered  for  a 
course  of  years,  and  can  only  end  in  Despotism,  as 
other  forms  have  done  before  it,  when  the  people  shall 
become  so  corrupted  as  to  need  despotic  Government, 
being  incapable  of  any  other.  I  doubt  too  whether  any 
other  Convention  we  can  obtain  may  be  able  to  make 
a  better  Constitution.  For  when  you  assemble  a 
number  of  men  to  have  the  advantage  of  their  joint 
wisdom,  you  inevitably  assemble  with  those  men,  all 
their  prejudices,  their  passions,  their  errors  of  opinion, 
their  local  interests,  and  their  selfish  views.  From 
such  an  assembly  can  a  perfect  production  be  ex- 
pected? It  therefore  astonishes  me,  Sir,  to  find  this 
system  approaching  so  near  to  perfection  as  it  does ; 
and  I  think  it  will  astonish  our  enemies,  who  are  wait- 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       419 

ing  with  confidence  to  hear  that  our  councils  are  con- 
founded like  those  of  the  Builders  of  Babel ;  and  that 
our  States  are  on  the  point  of  separation,  only  to  meet 
hereafter  for  the  purpose  of  cutting  one  another's 
throats.  Thus  I  consent,  Sir,  to  this  Constitution  be- 
cause I  expect  no  better,  and  because  I  am  not  sure, 
that  it  is  not  the  best.  The  opinions  I  have  had  of  its 
errors,  I  sacrifice  to  the  public  good.  I  have  never 
whispered  a  syllable  of  them  abroad.  Within  these 
walls  they  were  born,  and  here  they  shall  die.  If  every 
one  of  us  in  returning  to  our  Constituents  were  to  re- 
port the  objections  he  has  had  to  it,  and  endeavor  to 
gain  partizans  in  support  of  them,  we  might  prevent 
its  being  generally  received,  and  thereby  lose  all  the 
salutary  effects  and  great  advantages  resulting  natu- 
rally in  our  favor  among  foreign  nations  as  well  as 
among  ourselves,  from  our  real  or  apparent  unanimity. 
Much  of  the  strength  and  efficiency  of  any  Govern- 
ment in  procuring  and  securing  happiness  to  the  peo- 
ple, depends,  on  opinion,  on  the  general  opinion  of  the 
goodness  of  the  Government  as  well  as  of  the  wisdom 
and  integrity  of  its  Governors.  I  hope  therefore  that 
for  our  own  sakes  as  a  part  of  the  people,  and  for  the 
sake  of  posterity,  we  shall  act  heartily  and  unanimously 
in  recommending  this  Constitution  (if  approved  by 
Congress  and  confirmed  by  the  Conventions)  wher- 
ever our  influence  may  extend,  and  turn  our  future 
thoughts  and  endeavors  to  the  means  of  having  it  well 
administered. 

"  On  the  whole,  Sir,  I  cannot  help  expressing  a  wish 
that  every  member  of  the  Convention  who  may  still 
have  objections  to  it,  would  with  me,  on  this  occasion 
doubt  a  little  of  his  own  infallibility,  and  to  make  mani- 


42O  George   Washington 

fest    our    unanimity,    put    his    name    to    this    instru- 
ment .  .  -5'1 

The  consent  of  nine  States  out  of  the  thirteen  was 
necessary  for  ratification,  after  the  plan  had  ac- 
quired the  consent  of  Congress. 

Not  many  months  had  elapsed  before  all  the 
States,  some  swiftly,  others  with  apparent  reluctance, 
wheeled  into  line,  and  one  after  another  ratified  the 
work  of  the  Convention.  In  Virginia,  the  famous 
"  fire-eater "  and  States'  Rights  man,  Patrick 
Henry,  fought  with  the  fury  of  a  lion  against  it  for 
twenty-three  days  in  the  Virginia  Convention  of 
1788,  and  succeeded  in  dragging  after  him  seventy- 
eight  out  of  1 68  delegates  to  that  body. 

Among  those  on  the  wrong  side,  as  after-gener- 
ations conceived  it,  were  Patrick  Henry,  Benjamin 
Harrison,  Judge  John  Tyler,  Meriweather  Smith, 
Stevens  Thompson  Mason,  George  Mason,  Theode- 
rick  Bland,  Grayson,  Bullitt,  James  Monroe,  and 
others. 

Weighty  names  on  the  other  side  were  Edmund 
Pendleton  (president  of  the  Convention),  the  Nich- 
olases, A.  Stuart,  Paul  Carrington,  Warner  Lewis, 
Governor  Randolph,  John  Marshall,  N.  Burwell,  R. 
Breckenridge,  Thornton,  Powell,  James  Madison, 
John  Blair,  George  Wythe,  and  Bushrod  Washing- 
ton. 

Two  singularly  interesting  entries  in  Washing- 
ton's Diary  at  this  time  may  well  close  the  account 
of  the  "  momentous  work  "  done  by  the  Convention : 
1  Writings  of  James  Madison,  vol.  iv,  p.  473. 


Birth  of  the  Constitution       421 

"  Met  in  Convention  when  the  Constitution  received 
the  unanimous  assent  of  1 1  States  and  Col.  Hamilton's 
from  New  York  (the  only  delegate  from  thence  in 
Convention)  and  was  subscribed  to  by  every  Member 
present  except  Gov.  Randolph  and  Col.  Mason  from 
Virginia — and  Mr.  Gerry  from  Massachusetts. 

"  The  business  being  thus  closed,  the  Members  ad- 
journed to  the  City  Tavern,  dined  together  and  took 
a  cordial  leave  of  each  other — after  which  I  returned 
to  my  lodgings — did  some  business  with,  and  received 
the  papers  from  the  Secretary  of  the  Convention,  and 
retired  to  meditate  on  the  momentous  work  which  had 
been  executed,  after  not  less  than  five,  for  a  large  part 
of  the  time  Six,  and  sometimes  7  hours  sitting  every 
day  [except],  Sundays  and  the  ten  days  adjournment  to 
give  a  Com.1  opportunity  and  time  to  arrange  the  busi- 
ness for  more  than  four  Months." 

"  In  all  our  deliberations  on  this  subject  we  kept 
steadily  in  our  view,  that  which  appears  to  us  the 
greatest  interest  of  every  true  American,  the  consoli- 
dation of  our  Union,  in  which  is  involved  our  pros- 
perity, felicity,  safety,  perhaps  our  national  existence. 
This  important  consideration,  seriously  and  deeply  im- 
pressed on  our  minds,  led  each  state  in  the  Convention 
to  be  less  rigid  on  points  of  inferior  magnitude  than 
might  have  been  otherwise  expected;  and  thus  the 
Constitution,  which  we  now  present,  is  the  result  of  a 
spirit  of  amity,  and  of  that  mutual  deference  and  con- 
cession which  the  peculiarity  of  our  political  situation 
rendered  indispensable." 

Through  so  many  throes,  was  the  birth  of  the 
Republic  accomplished. 

1  Committee. 


CHAPTER  XX 

"  FIRST   CITIZEN  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  " 

THE  "  federal  pyramid  "  having  thus  been  firm- 
ly established,  with  its  broad  basis  built  on 
popular  representation,  and  its  apex  crowned  by  a 
man  of  the  people's  own  choice,  all  eyes  turned  in- 
stinctively to  the  one  who,  in  all  these  turmoils,  had 
shown  himself  supremely  well  fitted  for  the  position 
— to  George  Washington,  "  first  citizen  of  the  Uni- 
ted States,"  as  a  distinguished  Frenchman  of  this 
time  impressively  called  him. 

The  tired  soldier,  dreaming  amid  the  sweet  re- 
tirement of  Mount  Vernon  of  a  tranquil  existence 
passed  among  his  golden  wheat  and  pink-flowering 
tobacco  fields,  on  the  banks  of  the  beautiful  Poto- 
mac, longed  for  nothing  more  than  to  be  let  alone; 
but  his  high  sense  of  duty,  quickened  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  work  only  half  done,  made  him, 
after  a  while,  lend  a  reluctant  ear  to  the  prayers  of 
Alexander  Hamilton,  Hanson,  LaFayette,  and 
others. 

"  I  take  it  for  granted,  Sir,"  wrote  Hamilton,  "  you 
have  concluded  to  comply  with  what  will,  no  doubt,  be 
the  general  call  of  your  country  in  relation  to  the  new 
government.  You  will  permit  me  to  say,  that  it  is  in- 
dispensable you  should  lend  yourself  to  its  first  oper- 

422 


"First   Citizen"  423 

ations.  It  is  to  little  purpose  to  have  introduced  a 
system  if  the  weightiest  influence  is  not  given  to  its 
firm  establishment  in  the  outset." 

He  wrote  to  Samuel  Hanson: 

"  The  first  wish  of  my  soul  is  to  spend  the  evening 
of  my  days  as  a  private  citizen  on  my  farm;  but,  if 
circumstances,  which  are  not  yet  sufficiently  unfolded 
to  form  the  judgment  or  the  opinion  of  my  friends, 
will  not  allow  me  this  last  boon  of  temporal  happiness, 
and  I  should  once  more  be  led  into  the  walks  of  public 
life,  it  is  my  fixed  determination  to  enter  there,  not  only 
unfettered  by  promises,  but  even  unchargeable  with 
creating  or  feeding  the  expectation  of  any  living  for 
my  assistance  to  office." 

To  LaFayette  he  expresses  himself  thus : 

"  Nothing  but  harmony,  honesty,  industry,  and  fru- 
gality are  necessary  to  make  us  a  great  and  happy  peo- 
ple. Happily  the  present  posture  of  affairs,  and  the 
prevailing  disposition  of  my  countrymen,  promise  to 
co-operate  in  establishing  those  four  great  and  essential 
pillars  of  public  felicity." 

Meanwhile,  his  own  affairs  had  sorely  suffered 
during  his  year-long  absences;  he  actually  had  to 
borrow  money  to  put  them  in  order;  and  the  death 
of  his  Spartan  mother  in  August,  1788,  at  the  ripe 
age  of  more  than  four-score  years,  caused  a  further 
pang  to  his  suffering  heart. 

"  Immediately  after  the  organisation  of  the  present 
government,  the  chief  magistrate  repaired  to  Freder- 
icksburg,  to  pay  his  humble  duty  to  his  mother,  pre- 


424  George  Washington 

paratory  to  his  departure  for  New  York.  An  affecting 
scene  ensued.  The  son  feelingly  remarked  the  ravages 
which  a  torturing  disease  [cancer]  had  made  upon  the 
aged  frame  of  the  mother,  and  addressed  her  with  these 
words :  '  The  people,  madam,  have  been  pleased,  with 
the  most  flattering  unanimity,  to  elect  me  to  the  chief 
magistracy  of  these  United  States,  but  before  I  can 
assume  the  functions  of  my  office,  I  have  come  to  bid 
you  an  affectionate  farewell.  So  soon  as  the  weight 
of  public  business,  which  must  necessarily  attend  the 
outset  of  a  new  government,  can  be  disposed  of,  I  shall 
hasten  to  Virginia,  and — '  Here  the  matron  inter- 
rupted with  '  — and  you  will  see  me  no  more ;  my 
great  age,  and  the  disease  which  is  fast  approaching 
my  vitals,  warn  me  that  I  shall  not  be  long  in  this 
world ;  I  trust  in  God  that  I  may  be  somewhat  prepared 
for  a  better.  But  go,  George,  fulfil  the  high  destinies 
which  Heaven  appears  to  have  intended  you  for;  go, 
my  son,  and  may  that  Heaven's  and  a  mother's  blessing 
be  with  you  always.'  "  1 

In  such  leisurely  fashion  did  the  delegates  as- 
semble that  March  4  became  April  6,  1789,  before 
the  Congress,  opening  the  electoral  votes,  found 
that  every  one  of  the  sixty-nine  ballots  cast  by  the 
ten  voting  states  (New  York,  North  Carolina,  and 
Rhode  Island  not  voting)  was  cast  for  the  great 
Virginian.  John  Adams  received  thirty-four  votes 
and  was  installed  as  Vice-president. 

Washington's  own  feelings  are  better  imagined 

*G.  W.  P.  Custis,  Recollections  and  Private  Memoirs  of 
Washington,  p.  145. 


"First  Citizen"  425 

than  described.     He  wrote  to  General  Knox  after 
his  election : 

"  In  confidence  I  tell  you,  (with  the  world  it  would 
obtain  little  credit)  that  my  movements  to  the  chair  of 
government  will  be  accompanied  by  feelings  not  un- 
like those  of  a  culprit,  who  is  going  to  the  place  of  his 
execution ;  so  unwilling  am  I,  in  the  evening  of  a  life 
nearly  consumed  in  public  cares,  to  quit  a  peaceful 
abode  for  an  ocean  of  difficulties,  without  that  com- 
petency of  political  skill,  abilities,  and  inclination, 
which  are  necessary  to  manage  the  helm.  I  am  sensi- 
ble that  I  am  embarking  the  voice  of  the  people,  and  a 
good  name  of  my  own,  on  this  voyage;  but  what  re- 
turns will  be  made  for  them,  Heaven  alone  can  foretell. 
Integrity  and  firmness  are  all  I  can  promise." 

To  his  French  friend,  Hector  St.  John  de  Cre- 
vecoeur,  he  wrote: 

"  A  combination  of  circumstances  and  events  seems 
to  have  rendered  my  embarking  again  on  the  ocean  of 
public  affairs  inevitable.  How  opposite  this  is  to  my 
own  desires  and  inclinations,  I  need  not  say.  Those 
who  know  me  are,  I  trust,  convinced  of  it.  For  the 
rectitude  of  my  intentions  I  appeal  to  the  great 
Searcher  of  hearts ;  and  if  I  have  any  knowledge  of 
myself  I  can  declare,  that  no  prospects  however  flatter- 
ing, no  personal  advantage  .however  great,  no  desire 
of  fame  however  easily  it  might  be  acquired,  could  in- 
duce me  to  quit  the  private  walks  of  life  at  my  age  and 
in  my  situation ;  but  if,  by  any  exertion  or  services  of 
mine,  my  country  can  be  benefited,  I  shall  feel  more 
amply  compensated  for  the  sacrifices  which  I  make, 
than  I  possibly  can  be  by  any  other  means." 


426  George  Washington 

In  the  spirit  of  true  magnanimity,  he  laid  aside 
all  personal  concerns,  and  accepted  the  high  trust 
conferred  on  him  by  nearly  four  millions  of  people. 
His  Diary  gives  a  pathetic  glimpse  of  his  feelings : 

"April  15th. 

"  About  ten  o'clock  I  bade  adieu  to  Mount  Vernon, 
to  private  life,  and  to  domestic  felicity,  and  with  a 
mind  oppressed  with  more  anxious  and  painful  sensa- 
tions than  I  have  words  to  express,  set  out  for  New 
York  in  company  with  Mr.  Thomson  and  Col.  Hum- 
phreys, with  the  best  disposition  to  render  service  to  my 
country  in  obedience  to  its  calls,  but  with  less  hope  of 
answering  its  expectations." 

No  gay  cavalier  was  this,  prancing  on  restive 
steed  to  meet  unknown  responsibilities  in  far-distant 
New  York,  that  April  morning:  it  was  a  very 
solemn  horseman,  about  whose  neck  was  a  chain, 
a  chain  of  gold,  woven  of  the  thousand  threads  of 
a  nation's  gratitude,  but  still  a  chain.  Very  differ- 
ent, indeed,  was  this  ride  from  that  five  years  be- 
fore, when  he  set  out  from  Annapolis  to  spend  the 
Christmas  of  1783  at  Mount  Vernon.  The  symbolic 
April  weather  with  all  its  changefulness  was  upon 
him,  and  he  was  hastening  onward  toward  unknown 
and  perhaps  insurmountable  difficulties. 

The  3Oth  of  April  drew  nigh,  and  on  that  day  in 
the  good  year  1789,  "the  first  Magistrate  of  the 
Union  "  was  inaugurated,  as  the  expression  came 
to  be,  President  of  the  United  States. 

The  simple  ceremony  was  thus  described  by  a 
contemporary : 


"First  Citizen"  427 

"At  nine  o'clock  A.  M.  the  clergy  of  different 
denominations  assembled  their  congregations  in  their 
respective  places  of  worship,  and  offered  up  prayers 
for  the  safety  of  the  President. 

"About  twelve  o'clock  the  procession  moved  from 
the  house  of  the  president  in  Cherry  Street,  through 
Dock  Street  to  Federal  Hall  [at  Wall  and  Nassau 
Streets]  :  in  the  following  order.  Colonel  [Morgan] 
Lewis  supported  by  two  officers,  Capt.  Stakes,  with 
the  troop  of  Horse-Artillery,  Major  Van  Home,  Gren- 
adiers, under  Captain  Harsin,  German  Grenadiers, 
under  Capt.  Scriba,  Major  Bicker,  The  Infantry  of 
the  Brigade,  Major  Chrystie,  Sheriff  [Robert  Boyd], 
The  Committee  of  the  Senate,  The  President  and  suite. 
The  Committee  of  the  Representatives,  The  Honorable 
Mr.  Jay,  General  Knox,  Chancellor  Livingston,  and 
several  other  gentlemen  of  distinction.  Then  followed 
a  multitude  of  citizens. 

"  When  they  came  within  a  short  distance  of  the 
Hall,  the  troops  formed  a  line  on  both  sides  of  the  way, 
and  his  Excellency  passing  through  the  ranks,  was 
conducted  into  the  building,  and  in  the  Senate  Chamber 
introduced  to  both  houses  of  Congress — immediately 
afterwards,  accompanied  by  the  two  houses,  he  went 
into  the  gallery  fronting  Broad-Street,  where,  in  the 
presence  of  an  immense  concourse  of  citizens,  he  took 
the  oath  prescribed  by  the  constitution,  which  was 
administered  to  him  by  the  Hon.  R.  R.  Livingston, 
Esq.,  Chancellor  of  the  state  of  New  York. 

"  Immediately  after  he  had  taken  the  oath,  the  Chan- 
cellor proclaimed  him  President  of  the  United  States. 
— Was  answered  by  the  discharge  of  13  guns,  and 
by  loud  repeated  shouts ;  on  this  the  President  bowed 


428  George  Washington 

to  the  people,  and  the  air  again  rang  with  their  accla- 
mations. His  Excellency  with  the  two  houses,  then 
retired  to  the  Senate  Chamber  and  delivered  his  speech. 
"  His  excellency  accompanied  by  the  Vice-President, 
the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives  [Fred- 
erick A.  Muhlenberg]  and  both  Houses  of  Congress 
went  to  St.  Paul's  chapel  [Broadway  and  Vesey  Street] 
where  divine  Service  was  performed  by  Right  Rever- 
end Dr.  [Samuel]  Provost,  Bishop  of  the  Episcopal 
Church  in  this  State  and  Chaplain  in  Congress.  The 
religious  ceremony  being  ended,  the  President  was 
escorted  to  his  house,  and  the  citizens  retired  to  their 
homes.  In  the  evening  was  exhibited  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Colonel  Bauman,  a  very  ingenious  and  splendid 
show  of  Fireworks." 

Washington  gathered  about  him  his  tried  and 
trusty  friends,  and  formed  them  into  a  Cabinet 
which  should  guide  him  at  this  critical  stage : 
Hamilton,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Jay  (suc- 
ceeded a  few  months  later  by  Jefferson),  Secretary 
of  State,  Knox,  Secretary  of  War,  Edmund  Ran- 
dolph (not  so  good  a  friend!),  Attorney-General, 
and  Samuel  Osgood,  Postmaster-General. 

Always  a  trifle  ceremonious,  after  the  good  old 
fashion  of  the  true  Virginia  gentleman  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  the  President  found  it  neces- 
sary to  establish  certain  little  rules  of  observance 
and  of  etiquette,  which  should  save  him  from  the 
intolerable  bores  who  thronged  his  ante-chamber 
and  called  "  just  to  pay  their  respects."  Hours  for 
public  receptions,  hours  for  Mrs.  Washington's 


WASHINGTON   MONUMENT. 
Looking  across  the  "  Flats." 


"First   Citizen"  429 

levees,  hours  for  the  diplomats,  state  dinners,  an 
established  code  for  the  President  of  receiving,  but 
not  returning,  calls,  the  simplest  ceremonial  dress 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  a  certain  stately 
simplicity  of  behaviour,  characterised  the  begin- 
nings of  official  life  in  the  United  States,  as  far 
as  possible  removed  from  the  vice-regal  splendour 
of  the  Spanish  Courts  in  Mexico,  the  Antilles,  and 
South  America. 

The  soldier  period  of  Washington's  existence  had 
passed  away  for  ever,  and  he  was  now,  at  the  age 
of  fifty-seven,  about  to  enter  on  that  career  of  the 
statesman  which  has  roused  and  held  the  lasting  ad- 
miration of  the  world.  Each  period  occupied  eight 
years,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  give  the  palm  to 
either  for  sustained  and  powerful  evolution  and 
growth.  The  natural  born  statesman  with  un- 
erring instinct  saw  and  seized  the  right  measures 
for  the  infant  State,  recognised  infallibly  what  was 
the  right  thing  to  do,  and  did  it  with  an  inflexibility 
which  no  flattery  or  persuasion  could  swerve  from 
its  purpose.  Two  measures,  to  his  undying  praise 
be  it  said,  stand  out  big  and  luminous  beyond  all 
others,  noble  monuments  to  his  wisdom  and  fore- 
sight: the  establishment,  as  a  fixed  policy,  of  the 
absolute  neutrality  of  the  United  States  in  all  Eu- 
ropean entanglements,  and  the  intellectual  and  moral 
alliance  with  Great  Britain.  The  dear  old  mother- 
country  had  erred  grievously  in  her  behaviour  to- 
wards her  child,  but  Washington,  forgiving  but  not 
forgetting,  could  not  bring  himself  to  break  with  her, 


430  George  Washington 

eminent  as  were  the  claims  of  France  to  his  grati- 
tude, when  the  French  War  came  on  in  the  nineties. 
He  loved  England  too  much  to  set  himself  against 
her,  and  this  exceeding  affection  at  last  put  Britain 
— reversing  Scripture — into  the  position  of  the  pro- 
digal mother  who,  having  spent  her  immeasurable 
wealth  of  colonies  in  riotous  living,  came  to  fall  at 
the  feet  of  her  child  and  ask  its  pardon. 

These  eight  years  of  administration  were  of  su- 
preme importance  to  the  Republic  as  "  solidifiers," 
as  pattern  years  wherein  broad  foundations  for  future 
policies  were  laid,  as  years  of  precedent  fraught 
with  interest  for  the  administrations  to  come.  The 
era  of  "  sovereign  "  States  and  suppliant  congresses, 
of  "  leagues  of  friendship,"  beguiled  almost  into 
dissolution  by  contempt  of  a  central  power  and  by 
presumptuous  self-confidence,  was  temporarily  over 
and  the  country  was  to  rest  for  at  least  seventy  years 
before  the  phantom  of  disintegration,  trampling 
under  foot  Washington's  prayer  for  an  "  inviolable  " 
and  "  indissoluble "  Union,  was  to  stalk  abroad 
through  the  land. 

The  first  Thanksgiving  was  celebrated  in  No- 
vember, 1789;  the  first  census  was  carried  out  in 
1790.  Very  simple  was  the  ceremonial  at  Wash- 
ington's receptions,  as  thus  described  by  a  con- 
temporary : 

"  At  three  o'clock,  or  at  any  time  within  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  afterward,  the  visitor  was  conducted  to  the 
dining-room,  from  which  all  seats  had  been  removed 
for  the  time.  On  entering,  he  saw  the  tall  manly  figure 


"  First  Citizen"  431 

of  Washington  clad  in  black  velvet;  his  hair  in  full 
dress,  powdered  and  gathered  behind  in  a  large  silk 
bag ;  yellow  gloves  on  his  hands ;  holding  a  cocked  hat 
with  a  cockade  in  it,  and  the  edges  adorned  with  a 
black  feather  about  an  inch  deep.  He  wore  knee  and 
shoe  buckles ;  and  a  long  sword,  with  a  finely  wrought 
and  polished  steel  hilt,  which  appeared  at  the  left  hip ; 
the  coat  worn  over  the  sword,  so  that  the  hilt,  and  the 
part  below  the  coat  behind,  were  in  view.  The  scab- 
bard was  white  polished  leather.  He  stood  always  in 
front  of  the  fire-place,  with  his  face  towards  the  door 
of  entrance.  The  visitor  was  conducted  to  him,  and  he 
required  to  have  the  name  so  distinctly  pronounced  that 
he  could  hear  it.  He  had  the  very  uncommon  faculty 
of  associating  a  man's  name,  and  personal  appearance, 
so  durably  in  his  memory,  as  to  be  able  to  call  one  by 
name,  who  made  him  a  second  visit.  He  received  his 
visitor  with  a  dignified  bow,  while  his  hands  were  so 
disposed  of  as  to  indicate,  that  the  salutation  was  not 
to  be  accompanied  with  shaking  hands.  This  cere- 
mony never  occurred  in  these  visits,  even  with  his  most 
near  friends,  that  no  distinction  might  be  made. 

"  As  visitors  came  in,  they  formed  a  circle  around 
the  room.  At  a  quarter  past  three,  the  door  was  closed, 
and  the  circle  was  formed  for  that  day.  He  then  began 
on  the  right,  and  spoke  to  each  visitor,  calling  him  by 
name,  and  exchanging  a  few  words  with  him.  When 
he  had  completed  his  circuit,  he  resumed  his  first  posi- 
tion, and  the  visitors  approached  him  in  succession, 
bowed  and  retired.  By  four  o'clock  this  ceremony  was 
over."  * 

1  William  Sullivan,  Public  Men  of  the  Revolution,  p.  120. 


432  George  Washington 

The  next  Congress  met  at  Philadelphia,  which 
was  to  remain  the  Capital  until  1800,  when  Congress 
met  in  the  "  Federal  City "  on  the  banks  of  the 
Potomac;  this  city  was  planned  and  laid  out  by  the 
President,  Major  L'Enfant,  Ellicott,  and  others, 
Washington  himself  laying  the  corner-stone  of  the 
Capitol  with  Masonic  ceremonies.  This  district,  ten 
miles  square,  has  ever  since  been  known  as  "  The 
District  of  Columbia  "  and  is  the  seat  of  the  Federal 
Government. 

Though  possessing  a  constitution  of  iron,  the 
President  was  twice  very  near  death  during  the  early 
years  of  his  first  administration,  once  from  a  malig- 
nant tumor,  during  which  he  lay  for  six  weeks  on 
his  right  side  unable  to  sit  up;  the  other  time  from 
inflammation  of  the  lungs  and  debility. 

During  the  former  illness  he  watched  the  doctor 
closely,  and  uttered  with  placid  firmness  the  simple 
touching  words :  "  Do  not  flatter  me  with  vain 
hopes;  I  am  not  afraid  to  die,  and  therefore 
can  bear  the  worst.  Whether  to-night  or  twenty 
years  hence  makes  no  difference.  I  know  that  I  am 
in  the  hands  of  a  good  Providence." 

He  instituted  the  custom  of  "  touring  the  coun- 
try "  in  the  interests  of  good  administration,  be- 
ginning with  New  England,  and  continuing,  later, 
with  the  Southern  States,  everywhere  meeting  an 
enthusiastic  welcome. 

At  Boston  occurred  a  ludicrous  incident  which 
dispelled  for  ever,  so  far  as  Washington  was  con- 
cerned, the  delusion  of  "  Sovereign  "  States,  and 


"First  Citizen"  433 

casts  a  gleam  of  grim  humour  over  the  serious  coun- 
tenance of  the  President.  When  he  visited  that  city, 
the  President  was  informed  that  John  Hancock, 
Governor  of  Massachusetts,  was  sick  in  bed,  too  ill 
to  pay  his  visit  of  ceremony.  It  was  more  than 
suspected  that  this  was  a  mere  "  dodge,"  to  evade 
the  responsibilities  of  the  hour  and  the  recognition 
of  the  President  as  the  superior  of  the  Governor  of 
a  State.  Washington  declined  to  visit  the  "  indis- 
posed "  magistrate,  who  thereupon,  in  post-haste, 
had  himself  "  borne  in  a  litter,  swathed  in  flannels  " 
to  the  inflexible  Chief,  paid  his  respects,  and  then 
departed,  doubtless  meditating  over  the  vicissitudes 
of  fortune. 

From  over  the  water,  from  time  to  time,  came 
strange  visitors  and  stranger  relics :  the  great  key  of 
the  Bastille  (destroyed  in  1789),  presented  by  La- 
Fayette ;  a  fiery  ode  from  the  pen  of  Alf ieri ;  sculp- 
tors and  painters  commemorating  in  marble  or  pig- 
ment their  conception  of  the  General.  Peale,  Trum- 
bull,  Houdon,  Canova,  Gilbert  Stuart,  caught  the 
features  and  fixed  the  attitudes  in  which  posterity 
now  loves  to  study  the  outward  character  of  the 
President.  Chateaubriand  and  Charles  James  Fox 
uttered  memorable  words  about  him : 

"  The  conversation  turned  almost  entirely  on  the 
French  revolution.  The  general  showed  us  a  key  of 
the  Bastille;  those  keys  of  the  Bastille  were  but  silly 
playthings  which  were  about  that  time  distributed  over 
the  two  worlds.  Had  Washington  seen  like  me  the 
conquerors  of  the  Bastille  in  the  kennels  of  Paris,  he 


434  George  Washington 

would  have  had  less  faith  in  the  relic.  The  gravity  and 
the  energy  of  the  revolution  were  not  in  those  sangui- 
nary orgies.  At  the  time  of  the  revocation  of  the  edict 
of  Nantes,  in  1685,  the  same  populace  of  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Antoine  demolished  the  Protestant  church  at 
Charenton  with  as  much  zeal  as  it  despoiled  the  church 
of  St.  Denis  in  1793. 

"  I  left  my  host  at  ten  in  the  evening,  and  never  saw 
him  again :  he  set  out  for  the  country  the  following  day, 
and  I  continued  my  journey. 

"  Such  was  my  interview  with  that  man  who  gave 
liberty  to  a  whole  world.  Washington  sank  into  the 
tomb  before  any  little  celebrity  had  attached  to  my 
name.  I  passed  before  him  as  the  most  unknown  of 
beings ;  he  was  in  all  his  glory,  I  in  the  depth  of  my 
obscurity,  my  name  probably  dwelt  not  a  whole  day  in 
his  memory.  Happy,  however,  that  his  looks  were  cast 
upon  me !  I  have  felt  myself  warmed  for  it  all  the  rest 
of  my  life.  There  is  a  virtue  in  the  looks  of  a  great 
man."  1 

Mr.  Fox  in  the  British  Parliament  in  January, 
1794,  said: 

"  And  here,  Sir,  I  cannot  help  alluding  to  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  General  Washington,  a 
character  whose  conduct  has  been  so  different  from 
that  which  has  been  pursued  by  the  ministers  of  this 
country.  How  infinitely  wiser  must  appear  the  spirit 
and  principles  manifested  in  his  late  address  to  Con- 
gress than  the  policy  of  modern  European  courts !  Il- 
lustrious man,  deriving  honour  less  from  the  splendour 
of  his  situation  than  from  the  dignity  of  his  mind ;  be- 

1  Chateaubriand,  Travels  in  America  and  Italy. 


"  First  Citizen"  435 

fore  whom  all  borrowed  greatness  sinks  into  insig- 
nificance, and  all  the  potentates  of  Europe  (excepting 
the  members  of  our  own  royal  family)  become  little 
and  contemptible!  He  has  had  no  occasion  to  have 
recourse  to  any  tricks  of  policy  or  arts  of  alarm;  his 
authority  has  been  sufficiently  supported  by  the  same 
means  by  which  it  was  acquired,  and  his  conduct  has 
uniformly  been  characterised  by  wisdom,  moderation, 
and  firmness.  Feeling  gratitude  to  France  for  the 
assistance  received  from  her  in  that  great  contest,  which 
secured  the  independence  of  America,  he  did  not 
choose  to  give  up  the  system  of  neutrality.  Having 
once  laid  down  that  line  of  conduct,  which  both  grati- 
tude and  policy  pointed  out  as  most  proper  to  be  pur- 
sued, not  all  the  insults  and  provocation  of  the  French 
minister  Genet  could  turn  him  from  his  purpose.  In- 
trusted with  the  welfare  of  a  great  people,  he  did  not 
allow  the  misconduct  of  another,  with  respect  to  him- 
self, for  one  moment  to  withdraw  his  attention  from 
their  interest.  He  had  no  fear  of  the  Jacobins,  he  felt 
no  alarm  from  their  principles,  and  considered  no  pre- 
caution as  necessary  in  order  to  stop  their  progress." 

The  intellectual  elite  of  the  country  were  gathered 
about  the  central  figure  in  the  two  Houses  of  Con- 
gress, the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
(over  which  Jay  presided  for  a  while),  and  the 
Cabinet.  Aided  by  the  energetic  counsel  of  Hamil- 
ton and  the  milder  wisdom  of  Madison,  Washing- 
ton established  on  firm  lines  the  fiscal  policy  of  the 
country,  persuaded  a  doubting  Congress  to  assume 
the  war  debts  of  the  States,  with  huge  outcry  of  the 
"  States'  Rights  "  party,  who  were  too  fastidious 


436  George   Washington 

either  to  pay  their  own  debts  or  have  them  paid  by 
the  National  Government,  and  when  the  Whiskey 
Rebellion  broke  out,  in  1794,  in  Western  Pennsyl- 
vania over  the  new  excise  laws,  was  ready  to  spring 
into  the  saddle  and  assume  the  command  himself 
of  the  forces  quickly  raised  to  crush  it. 

Chronic  grumblers  of  course  there  were,  like 
Maclay  of  Pennsylvania,  who  hurled  surreptitious 
vitriol  at  the  President  for  going  in  state  to  Con- 
gress with  postilions,  and  outriders,  and  other 
"  monarchical "  gear,  or  like  Freneau,  whose  in- 
famous attacks  on  his  character  and  motives,  later, 
caused  Washington  great  pain;  but,  generally,  the 
period  1789-1797  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  the 
Golden  Age  of  the  Republic,  an  age  presided  over 
by  the  man  whose  portrait  Lord  Shelburne  con- 
sidered the  first  ornament  of  his  gallery ;  a  man  to 
whom  the  famous  Thomas,  Lord  Erskine  wrote : 

"  I  have  taken  the  liberty  to  introduce  your  august 
and  immortal  name  in  a  short  sentence  which  is  to  be 
found  in  the  book  I  send  to  you.  I  have  a  large  ac- 
quaintance among  the  most  valuable  and  exalted 
classes  of  men ;  but  you  are  the  only  human  being  for 
whom  I  ever  felt  an  awful  reverence.  I  sincerely  pray 
God  to  grant  a  long  and  serene  evening  to  a  life  so 
gloriously  devoted  to  the  universal  happiness  of  the 
world." 

When  even  his  foes  could  speak  of  him  thus,  there 
was  no  fear  that  "  the  first  magistrate  of  the  Union  " 
would  wilfully  go  astray  on  questions  vital  to  hu- 
manity as  well  as  to  his  own  people. 


"First  Citizen"  437 

His  policy  toward  the  Indians,  the  wild  Chero- 
kees  and  Chickasaws,  as  well  as  to  the  more  civilised 
Six  Nations,  shadowed  as  it  might  be  by  the  awful 
disaster  of  General  St.  Clair,  and  the  continued  re- 
fusal of  the  British  Ministry  to  deliver  up  the  North- 
western fortresses,  as  stipulated  by  the  Treaty  of 
Paris,  was  always  distinguished  by  the  same  calm- 
ness, patience,  conciliation  as  he  showed  toward  the 
civilised  white  potentates  who  sent  stars  and  garters, 
instead  of  pipes  of  peace  and  strings  of  wampum, 
to  symbolise  their  good  feeling.  The  "  Great 
Father  "  would  gravely  whiff  the  proffered  calumet 
and  pass  it  on  to  the  painted  and  top-knotted  savage, 
as  ceremoniously  as  to  a  Spanish  grandee,  collared 
with  the  insignia  of  the  Golden  Fleece;  and  great 
would  be  the  satisfaction,  and  numerous  the  gut- 
tural grunts  as  the  diplomats  of  the  wilderness 
swept,  breeched  and  blanketed,  out  of  his  presence. 

And  thus  the  Indian  "  wild-fire,"  that  ran  over 
prairie  and  mountain,  scourged  the  Alleghanies  and 
the  Ohio  Valley,  and  threatened  at  times  the  very 
existence  of  the  Republic,  grew  gradually  fainter, 
less  intense,  less  malignant,  conjured  by  kind  words, 
just  treatment,  courtesy,  and  conciliation. 

As  the  first  administration  drew  to  its  close,  men 
began  to  look  anxiously  into  each  other's  faces  and 
inquire :  What  shall  we  do  now  ?  What  is  to  be- 
come of  us  if .  .  .  .  ? 

This  "  if,"  fraught  with  such  enormous  meaning, 
could  signify  but  one  thing.  The  great  builder  of 
the  Republic  was  still  there;  the  foundations  were 


438  George  Washington 

settling,  but  consolidation  was  not  yet  complete ;  the 
French  Revolution  had  started  alarming  agitations; 
it  appeared  as  if  the  fair  fabric  of  American  Union, 
reared  amid  such  difficulties,  planned  with  such 
wisdom,  might  collapse  if  the  superintending  archi- 
tect deserted  the  structure  at  this  critical  moment, 
or  let  it  settle  not  in  cement  of  adamant  but  in 
quicksands  of  party  strife. 

Three  or  four  powerful  voices  concentrated  the 
sentiment  of  the  entire  country,  when  Hamilton, 
Jefferson,  and  Randolph  wrote: 

"  I  received  the  most  sincere  pleasure,"  said  Hamil- 
ton, "  at  finding  in  our  last  conversation,  that  there  was 
some  relaxation  in  the  disposition  you  had  before  dis- 
covered to  decline  a  reelection.  Since  your  departure 
I  have  lost  no  opportunity  of  sounding  the  opinions  of 
persons,  whose  opinions  were  worth  knowing,  on  these 
two  points ;  first,  the  effect  of  your  declining  upon  the 
public  affairs,  and  upon  your  own  reputation ;  second- 
ly, the  effect  of  your  continuing,  in  reference  to  the 
declarations  you  have  made  of  your  disinclination  to 
public  life.  And  I  can  truly  say,  that  I  have  not  found 
the  least  difference  of  sentiment  on  either  point.  The 
impression  is  uniform,  that  your  declining  would  be  to 
be  deplored  as  the  greatest  evil  that  could  befall  the 
country  at  the  present  juncture,  and  as  critically  hazard- 
ous to  your  own  reputation ;  that  your  continuance  will 
be  justified  in  the  mind  of  every  friend  to  his  country 
by  the  evident  necessity  for  it.  ...  I  trust,  Sir,  and 
I  pray  God,  that  you  will  determine  to  make  a  further 
sacrifice  of  your  tranquility  and  happiness  to  the  public 
good.  I  trust,  that  it  need  not  continue  above  a  year 


"First  Citizen"  439 

or  two  more.  And  I  think,  that  it  will  be  more  eligible 
to  retire  from  office  before  the  expiration  of  the  term 
of  election,  than  to  decline  a  reelection." 

"  The  confidence  of  the  whole  Union,"  said  Jeffer- 
son, "  is  centred  in  you.  Your  being  at  the  helm  will 
be  more  than  an  answer  to  every  argument  which  can 
be  used  to  alarm  and  lead  the  people  in  any  quarter 
into  violence  or  secession.  North  and  south  will  hang 
together,  if  they  have  you  to  hang  on ;  and,  if  the  first 
corrective  of  a  numerous  representation  should  fail  in 
its  effect,  your  presence  will  give  time  for  trying  others 
not  inconsistent  with  the  union  and  peace  of  the  States." 

Randolph  wrote : 

"  Permit  me,  then,  in  the  fervor  of  a  dutiful  and 
affectionate  attachment  to  you,  to  beseech  you  to 
penetrate  the  consequences  of  a  dereliction  of  the  reins. 
The  constitution  would  never  have  been  adopted,  but 
from  a  knowledge  that  you  had  once  sanctioned  it,  and 
an  expectation  that  you  would  execute  it.  It  is  in  a 
state  of  probation.  The  most  inauspicious  struggles 
are  past,  but  the  public  deliberations  need  stability. 
You  alone  can  give  them  stability.  You  suffered  your- 
self to  yield  when  the  voice  of  your  country  summoned 
you  to  the  administration.  Should  a  civil  war  arise, 
you  cannot  stay  at  home.  And  how  much  easier  will 
it  be  to  disperse  the  factions,  which  are  rushing  to  this 
catastrophe,  than  to  subdue  them  after  they  shall  appear 
in  arms  ?  It  is  the  fixed  opinion  of  the  world,  that  you 
surrender  nothing  incomplete." 

Jefferson  "  hit  the  nail  precisely  on  the  head  " 
when  he  summed  up  the  whole  situation  in  a  single 
phrase:  "North  and  south  will  hang  together  if 


44°  George  Washington 

they  have  you  to  hang  on."  Washington  was  the 
central  pivot  of  the  whole  machine ;  and  modest  and 
diffident  as  he  was,  with  his  private  affairs  at  Mount 
Vernon  all  entangled,  and  his  nephew  dying  there, 
he  could  not  but  feel  it  to  be  true.  Giving  up  for 
the  hundredth  time  all  personal  considerations,  he 
yielded,  sacrificing  himself  with  that  touching  and 
sublime  trust  in  a  superintending  Providence  which 
he  had  all  his  life  practised,  as  he  wrote  to  Ran- 
dolph : 

"  With  respect,  however,  to  the  interesting  subject 
treated  in  your  letter  of  the  5th  instant,  I  can  express 
but  one  sentiment  at  this  time,  and  that  is  a  wish,  a 
devout  one,  that,  whatever  my  ultimate  determination 
shall  be,  it  may  be  for  the  best.  The  subject  never 
recurs  to  my  mind  but  with  additional  poignancy ;  and, 
from  the  declining  state  of  the  health  of  my  nephew, 
to  whom  my  concerns  of  a  domestic  and  private  nature 
are  entrusted,  it  comes  with  aggravated  force.  But  as 
the  All-wise  Disposer  of  events  has  hitherto  watched 
over  my  steps,  I  trust,  that,  in  the  important  one  I  may 
soon  be  called  upon  to  take,  he  will  mark  the  course 
so  plainly,  as  that  I  cannot  mistake  the  way." 

Again  the  solemn  moment  of  the  election  drew 
nigh :  the  ballots  were  again  opened,  and  again  the 
entire  number  was  given  to  Washington — triumph 
more  signal  than  before,  for  now  New  York,  North 
Carolina,  and  Rhode  Island  voted,  and  Kentucky 
and  Vermont  had  entered  the  Union,  making  fifteen 
instead  of  ten  States  now  voting.  John  Adams, 
staunch  Federalist,  brilliant  politician,  perhaps  the 


"First   Citizen"  441 

most  generally  accomplished  of  the  occupants  of  the 
White  House,  except  Jefferson,  was  still  the  favour- 
ite for  Vice-president.  Universal  pleasure  was  dis- 
played at  this  event.  Both  Houses  waited  in  state 
on  the  President,  as  they  had  often  done  before  to 
offer  their  congratulations  on  his  birthday.  He 
took  the  simple  oath  of  office,  kissed  the  Bible,  and 
was  now  in  for  another  four  years,  far  more  diffi- 
cult and  perplexing  than  the  first,  testing  his  endur- 
ance to  the  utmost,  yet  accentuating  more  and  more 
his  perpetual  purpose  to  leave  behind  him  a  nation 
and  a  government  established  upon  the  firmest 
foundations.  The  new  administration  opened  under 
bright  auspices. 

The  wild  orgies  in  France,  however,  the  cruel 
execution  of  Louis  XVI.  and  Marie  Antoinette,  the 
insane  activity  of  the  Jacobins,  soon  produced  ex- 
treme tension  between  France  and  England,  and  war 
was  declared  in  1794. 

The  "  burning  question  "  of  the  neutrality  of  the 
United  States  burned  to  a  white  heat,  ere  it  cooled 
under  the  icy  touch  of  the  President,  whose  states- 
manship loomed  up  in  outlines  as  clear  and  unmis- 
takable as  the  Alps.  "  No  entangling  alliances," 
cried  he  to  the  crazy  fanatics  who  itched  to  embroil 
the  country  in  a  war  with  England  by  a  noisy 
alliance  with  the  French.  Profoundly  sympathising 
with  both  sides,  devotedly  attached  to  France  and 
the  LaFayettes,  while  every  fibre  of  his  nature  and 
ancestry  struck  straight  and  deep  into  the  heart  of 
England,  he  managed  to  keep  his  head,  and  declare 


442  George  Washington 

in  lucid  and  positive  terms  his  firm  purpose  to  side 
with  neither.  Parties  for  the  first  time  appeared  in 
Congress,  and  bitter  and  trenchant  talk  was  tossed 
to  and  fro;  jibes,  jokes,  doggered,  pasquinades,  and 
pamphlets  of  all  sorts,  jocose  or  ferocious,  lent  pic- 
turesqueness  to  the  scene;  and  the  misguided  diplo- 
mats of  Downing  Street  again  went  so  far  as  to 
bring  their  country  to  the  verge  of  war  with  the 
United  States,  by  still  refusing  to  surrender  the 
frontier  strongholds.  Jay  was  sent  to  England  to 
negotiate  a  treaty,  which  was  arranged  in  1795;  but 
when  it  came  before  Congress,  in  1796,  for  ratifica- 
tion, an  acrimonious  debate  arose  over  its  terms, 
which  seemed  to  concede  far  too  much  to  England 
in  return  for  the  surrender  of  the  fortresses.  Riots 
ensued ;  windows  were  smashed ;  violent  scenes  were 
enacted  on  the  streets,  worse  than  those  which  a 
year  or  two  before  had  accompanied  the  conduct  of 
the  meddling  French  minister,  Genet,  as  he  pro- 
ceeded to  dispense  letters  of  marque  to  French 
privateers,  and  organise  open  resistance  to  England 
on  American  soil.  The  Secretary  of  State,  Edmund 
Randolph,  sympathised  with  France,  and  was  ac- 
cused of  receiving  bribes  from  the  French  Cabinet. 
Fluctuations  in  the  Cabinet  ensued  from  time  to 
time;  Hamilton,  Jefferson,  Knox,  and  Randolph  re- 
tired, and  Wolcott,  Pickering,  and  Charles  Lee  of 
Virginia  took  service  as  Secretaries  of  the  Treasury 
and  of  State,  and  Attorney-general.  Germs  of 
an  enlightened  policy  towards  army  and  navy  began 
to  develop,  and  a  liberal  treaty  with  Spain  soon 


» < 


First  Citizen  "  443 


brought  the  country  into  active  intercourse  with 
Florida  and  the  Spanish-speaking  Americas. 

All,  however,  was  not  serene  sailing  for  the  Presi- 
dent. "  Notwithstanding,"  says  Chief  Justice 
Marshall,  "  the  extraordinary  popularity  of  the  first 
president  of  the  United  States,  scarcely  has  any 
important  act  of  his  administration  escaped  the  most 
bitter  invective." 

Party  feeling  indeed  ran  high  at  times,  especially 
on  the  neutrality  question,  and  "  the  calm  light  of 
mild  philosophy,"  as  Washington  phrased  it,  came 
near  deserting  him. 

Of  the  bitterness  of  this  party  feeling  Washing- 
ton's own  words  give  ample  testimony : 

"  To  this  I  may  add,  and  very  truly,  that  until  the 
last  year  or  two,  I  had  no  conception  that  parties  would, 
or  even  could  go  the  lengths  I  have  been  witness  to; 
nor  did  I  believe,  until  lately,  that  it  was  within  the 
bounds  of  probability  .  .  .  hardly  within  those  of 
possibility  .  .  .  that  while  I  was  using  my  utmost  ex- 
ertions to  establish  a  national  character  of  our  own, 
independent  as  far  as  our  obligations  and  justice  would 
permit,  of  every  nation  of  the  earth ;  and  wished  by 
steering  a  steady  course  to  preserve  this  country  from 
the  horrors  of  a  desolating  war,  I  should  be  accused 
of  being  the  enemy  of  one  nation  and  subject  to  the 
influence  of  another ;  and  to  prove  it,  that  every  act  of 
my  administration  would  be  tortured,  and  the  grossest 
and  most  insidious  misrepresentations  of  them  be  made, 
by  giving  one  side  only  of  a  subject,  and  that  too  in 
such  exaggerated  and  indecent  terms  as  could  scarcely 


444  George  Washington 

be  applied  to  a  Nero,  ...  to  a  notorious  defaulter, 
...  or  even  to  a  common  pick-pocket."  * 

A  batch  of  spurious  letters,  seriously  reflecting 
on  his  character,  had  appeared  twenty  years  before 
and  caused  the  President  such  pain  and  indignation 
that  he  filed  a  solemn  and  explicit  denial  of  their 
authenticity  with  the  Secretary  of  State,  before  he 
laid  down  his  office  in  1797.  These  letters,  known 
as  "  The  Spurious  Washington  Letters,"  he  de- 
nounced as  "  a  base  forgery." 

When  the  closing  years  of  his  second  administra- 
tion were  drawing  on,  he  conceived  the  happy  idea 
of  bequeathing  to  his  beloved  people  a  legacy  of 
thought  and  counsel,  such  as  his  forty-five  years  of 
devotion  to  this  service  had  suggested  to  his  fervent 
and  active  mind,  thought  and  counsel  the  most  pre- 
cious ever  bequeathed  by  a  great  leader  to  his  people 
about  to  be  left  to  their  own  thoughts  and  counsels. 
Of  this  noble  document  the  eminent  English 'his- 
torian, Alison,  writes : 

"The  end  of  the  same  year  [1796]  witnessed  the 
resignation  of  the  presidency  of  the  United  States  of 
America  by  General  Washington,  and  his  voluntary 
retirement  into  private  life.  Modern  history  has  not 
a  more  spotless  character  to  commemorate.  Invincible 
in  resolution,  firm  in  conduct,  incorruptible  in  integrity, 
he  brought  to  the  helm  of  a  victorious  republic  the 
simplicity  and  innocence  of  rural  life;  he  was  forced 
into  greatness  by  circumstances  rather  than  led  into 
it  by  inclination,  and  prevailed  over  his  enemies  rather 

1  Marshall,  The  Life  of  George  Washington,  vol.  v,  p.  675. 


'First  Citizen"  445 

by  the  wisdom  of  his  designs,  and  the  perseverance  of 
his  character,  than  by  any  extraordinary  genius  for  the 
art  of  war.  A  soldier  from  necessity  and  patriotism 
rather  tharf  disposition,  he  was  first  to  recommend  a 
return  to  pacific  counsels  when  the  independence  of 
his  country  was  secured ;  and  bequeathed  to  his  country- 
men an  address  on  leaving  their  government  to  which 
there  are  few  compositions  of  inspired  wisdom  which 
can  bear  a  comparison.  He  was  modest  without  diffi- 
dence ;  sensible  to  the  voice  of  fame  without  vanity ; 
independent  and  dignified  without  either  asperity  or 
pride.  He  was  a  friend  to  liberty,  but  not  to  licentious- 
ness— not  to  the  dreams  of  enthusiasts,  but  to  those 
practical  ideas  which  America  had  inherited  from  her 
British  descent,  and  which  were  opposed  to  nothing  so 
much  as  the  extravagant  love  of  power  in  the  French 
democracy.  Accordingly,  after  having  signalised  his 
life  by  a  successful  resistance  to  English  oppression, 
he  closed  it  by  the  warmest  advice  to  cultivate  the 
friendship  of  Great  Britain ;  and  exerted  his  whole  in- 
fluence, shortly  before  his  resignation,  to  effect  the 
conclusion  of  a  treaty  of  friendly  and  commercial  in- 
tercourse between  the  mother  country  and  its  emanci- 
pated offspring.  He  was  a  Cromwell  without  his  am- 
bition; a  Sylla  without  his  crimes;  and  after  having 
raised  his  country,  by  his  exertions,  to  the  rank  of  an 
independent  state,  he  closed  his  career  by  a  voluntary 
relinquishment  of  the  power  which  a  grateful  people 
had  bestowed." 

Many  willing  hands  besides  Washington's 
wrought  on  this  paper — Hamilton,  Madison,  Pick- 
ering, made  many  suggestions,  turned  many 
phrases,  communicated  thoughts  and  ideas  to  be 


446  George  Washington 

woven  into  its  substance ;  but  the  spirit  of  Washing- 
ton is  there  supreme,  lofty,  calm,  a  superintending 
Providence  incarnate,  providing  for  the  future  and 
guarding  against  its  perils  with  truest  insight. 

Never  was  the  last  will  and  testament  of  a  great 
mind  more  touchingly  embodied  in  words,  noble  in 
their  simplicity,  direct  in  their  force,  pregnant  in 
their  significance;  and,  for  more  than  a  hundred 
years,  the  country  has  followed  its  counsels  with 
reverence  and  respect. 

When  his  successor,  John  Adams,  was  sworn  in 
on  March  4,  1797,  it  was  noticed  that  a  radiant  joy 
and  peace  settled  on  the  face  of  Washington,  an 
expression  which  never  afterwards  deserted  it. 
When  the  French  scare  was  at  its  height,  and  French 
cruisers  began  to  ravage  American  trade  in  the  West 
Indies,  he  was  as  ready  as  ever  to  hurry  forward  and 
help  his  country  as  Commander-in-chief  of  her 
forces,  though  he  was  an  old  and  broken  man  seek- 
ing naught  but  rest. 

The  best  summary  of  his  administrative  work  is 
found  in  the  words  of  Marshall : 

"  At  home,  a  sound  credit  had  been  created ;  an  im- 
mense floating  debt  had  been  funded  in  a  manner  per- 
fectly satisfactory  to  the  creditors;  an  ample  revenue 
had  been  provided ;  those  difficulties  which  a  system 
of  internal  taxation,  on  its  first  introduction,  is  doomed 
to  encounter,  were  completely  removed ;  and  the  au- 
thority of  the  government  was  firmly  established. 
Funds  for  the  gradual  payment  of  the  debt  had  been 
provided ;  a  considerable  part  of  it  had  been  actually 


"  First  Citizen  "  447 

discharged ;  and  that  system  which  is  now  operating  its 
entire  extinction,  had  been  matured  and  adopted.  The 
agricultural  and  commercial  wealth  of  the  nation  had 
increased  beyond  all  former  example.  The  numerous 
tribes  of  warlike  Indians,  inhabiting  those  immense 
tracts  which  lie  between  the  then  cultivated  country 
and  the  Mississippi,  had  been  taught,  by  arms  and  by 
justice,  to  respect  the  United  States,  and  to  continue 
in  peace.  This  desirable  object  having  been  accom- 
plished, that  humane  system  was  established  for  civil- 
ising and  furnishing  them  with  the  conveniences  of 
life,  which  improves  their  condition,  while  it  secures 
their  attachment. 

"  Abroad,  the  differences  with  Spain  had  been  ac- 
commodated ;  and  the  free  navigation  of  the  Mississippi 
had  been  acquired,  with  the  use  of  New  Orleans  as  a 
depot  for  three  years,  and  afterwards  until  some  other 
equivalent  place  should  be  designated.  Those  causes 
of  mutual  exasperation  which  had  threatened  to  involve 
the  United  States  in  a  war  with  the  greatest  maritime 
and  commercial  power  in  the  world,  had  been  removed  ; 
and  the  military  posts  which  had  been  occupied  within 
their  territory,  from  their  existence  as  a  nation,  had 
been  evacuated.  Treaties  had  been  formed  with  Al- 
giers and  with  Tripoli,  and  no  captures  appear  to  have 
been  made  by  Tunis;  so  that  the  Mediterranean  was 
opened  to  American  vessels. 

"  This  bright  prospect  was  indeed,  in  part,  shaded  by 
the  glowing  discontents  of  France.  Those  who  have 
attended  to  the  particular  points  of  difference  between 
the  two  nations  will  assign  the  causes  to  which  these 
discontents  are  to  be  ascribed;  and  will  judge  whether 
it  was  in  the  power  of  the  executive  to  have  avoided 


448  George  Washington 

them,  without  surrendering  the  real  independence  of 
the  nation,  and  the  most  invaluable  of  all  rights  .  .  .  the 
right  of  self-government."  x 

Of  the  final  act  of  this  great  administration — the 
surrender  of  the  reins  of  government  into  the  hands 
of  his  successor — John  Adams  wrote : 

"  There  was  scarcely  a  dry  eye  except  Washing- 
ton's." 

1  Marshall,  The  Life  of  George  Washington,  vol.  v,  p.  732. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

"  THE     GLIMMERING     TAPER  " 

RANDPAPA  is  much  pleased  with  being 
once  more  Farmer  Washington,"  wrote 
Nellie  Custis  to  Mrs.  Wolcott,  in  1797.  For  sixteen 
years,  Washington  had  been  separated  from  his  be- 
loved Mount  Vernon,  eight  of  those  passed  in  the 
harassing  anxieties  of  camps,  and  eight  more,  far 
from  the  green  wildernesses  of  his  youth,  amid  the 
brick  and  mortar  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia. 
The  evening  hour,  the  hour  of  the  contemplative 
lamp,  dedicated  to  the  loving  family  circle,  was  ap- 
proaching. The  home  called  him  with  irresistible 
eloquence.  For  nearly  fifty  years  he  had  been  a 
public  man,  absolutely  devoted,  body  and  soul,  to 
the  service  of  his  country;  yet  all  the  time  the  in- 
tense domestic  instincts  had  been  there,  chained 
down  by  his  solemn  sense  of  public  responsibilities, 
ready  at  a  moment's  notice  to  break  loose  when  the 
pressure  was  removed.  The  pruning-hook  and  the 
ploughshare  triumphantly  vindicated  their  strength 
over  the  sword,  and  Washington  now  turned  to 
them  as  his  proper  implements  and  insignia. 

Of  his  occupations  at  Mount  Vernon  he  pleasantly 
writes  to  McHenry: 

"  I  begin  my  diurnal  course  with  the  sun ;  if  my  hire- 
449 


45°  George  Washington 

lings  are  not  in  their  places  at  that  time  I  send  them 
messages  of  sorrow  for  their  indisposition ;  having  put 
these  wheels  in  motion,  I  examine  the  state  of  things 
further ;  the  more  they  are  probed,  the  deeper  I  find  the 
wounds,  which  my  buildings  have  sustained  by  an 
absence  and  neglect  of  eight  years ;  by  the  time  I  have 
accomplished  these  matters,  breakfast  (a  little  after 
seven  o'clock)  is  ready;  this  being  over,  I  mount  my 
horse  and  ride  round  my  farms,  which  employs  me 
until  it  is  time  to  dress  for  dinner,  at  which  I  rarely 
miss  seeing  strange  faces,  come  as  they  say  out  of  re- 
spect for  me.  Pray,  would  not  the  word  curiosity 
answer  as  well?  And  how  different  this  from  having 
a  few  social  friends  at  a  cheerful  board!  The  usual 
time  of  sitting  at  table,  a  walk,  and  tea,  bring  me 
within  the  dawn  of  candlelight ;  previous  to  which,  if 
not  prevented  by  company,  I  resolve,  that,  as  soon  as 
the  glimmering  taper  supplies  the  place  of  the  great 
luminary,  I  will  retire  to  my  writing-table  and  acknowl- 
edge the  letters  I  have  received ;  but  when  the  lights 
are  brought,  I  feel  tired  and  disinclined  to  engage  in 
this  work,  conceiving  that  the  next  night  will  do  as 
well.  The  next  night  comes,  and  with  it  the  same 
causes  for  postponement,  and  so  on ....  Having  given 
you  the  history  of  a  day,  it  will  serve  for  a  year." 

He  was  already  in  the  attitude  of  the  parting 
guest  making  preparations  for  the  hour  of  his  de- 
parture. The  luminary,  which  Franklin  had  sig- 
nificantly pointed  to  when  Washington  presided 
over  the  Constitutional  Convention,  had  climbed  to 
the  meridian  and  was  now  gently  and  softly  shroud- 
ing itself  in  the  lovely  mists  of  twilight,  "  a  glim- 


'The  Glimmering  Taper"      451 

mering  taper  "  emitting  only  the  calm  and  solemn 
light  that  shines  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect 
day.  But  there  was  nothing  mawkish  or  sentimental 
in  the  last  days  at  Mount  Vernon.  With  the  per- 
fect strength  of  mind  and  of  physique  that  had 
always  characterised  him,  he  viewed  life  with  cheer- 
fulness, retired  at  nine,  rose  at  four,  attended 
personally  to  the  loads  of  letters  that  daily  littered 
his  table,  went  forth,  compass  in  hand,  to  survey 
this  or  that  piece  of  ground,  personally  superin- 
tended the  copying  of  his  private  and  public  corre- 
spondence, looked  carefully  after  his  hundreds  of 
dependents,  and,  in  true  Old  Virginia  style,  kept 
open  house  for  the  throngs  of  pilgrims  who  made 
Mount  Vernon  the  Mecca  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Hither  came  the  mocking  Talleyrand,  the  philo- 
sophic Volney,  the  exiled  Louis  Philippe  and  his 
brothers,  visitors  from  every  clime  and  kingdom, 
writers,  artists,  veterans  of  the  Revolution,  members 
of  cabinets  and  congresses,  gentle  and  simple  alike; 
all  were  hospitably  welcomed.  The  General's  fa- 
vourite expressions  about  this  idyllic  existence  were : 
"  my  own  vine  and  fig-tree,"  "  the  shades  of  retire- 
ment," "  floating  gently  down  the  stream  of  time." 
A  great  peace  had  come  upon  him,  and  the  evening 
glow  was  melting  into  that  mellow  twilight  that 
sometimes  wells  up  behind  a  great  mountain,  and 
makes  it  loom  in  golden  distinctness  against  the 
illumined  West.  His  comprehensive  care  neglected 
neither  jot  nor  tittle,  neither  tomb  nor  testament: 
everything  was  thought  of.  He  rode  from  twelve  to 


452  George  Washing-ton 

fifteen  miles  over  his  estates  every  day;  seed-time 
and  harvest  came  and  went,  every  phase  of  each  be- 
ing followed  by  his  vigilant  eye.  He  gathered  his 
old  servants  affectionately  about  him  and  established 
them  in  comfortable  quarters :  "  Old  Billy,"  his 
body  servant  during  the  Revolution,  now  a  cripple, 
Jack  the  fisherman,  watching  on  the  river  for  the 
cook's  signal  to  bring  the  fish  for  dinner ;  and  many 
another  ancient  and  faithful  dependent.  A  humor- 
ous gleam  is  again  shed  over  this  period,  by  an 
amusing  contract  drawn  up  by  the  ex-president  with 
his  gardener,  whose  besetting  sin  was  a  fondness 
for  the  convivial  cup.  Among  other  details  occurs 
the  following : 

"  Four  dollars  at  Christmas,  with  which  he  may  be 
drunk  four  days  and  four  nights ;  two  dollars  at  Easter 
to  effect  the  same  purpose ;  two  dollars  at  Whitsuntide 
to  be  drunk  for  two  days ;  a  dram  in  the  morning,  and 
a  drink  of  grog  at  dinner  at  noon." 

The  accomplished  housewifery  of  Mrs.  Washing- 
ton caused  many  a  visitor  to  linger  with  fond  reluc- 
tance and  overstay  his  time,  while  the  marriage  of 
fair  Nellie  Custis  to  Lawrence  Lewis,  regular  visits 
on  Sunday  to  old  Pohick  Church,  canvasback  duck 
and  old  Madeira  at  the  table  of  friends  and  neigh- 
bours up  and  down  the  river,  varied  the  rural  scene 
and  mingled  with  the  oils  in  which  the  taper  swam 
a  rich  perfume  of  domestic  joy. 

When  the  wild  alarms  of  the  maritime  war  with 
France,  succeeding  the  insolent  demands  of  the 


'The  Glimmering-  Taper"       453 

Barbary  pirates,  drew  on,  no  one  more  heartily  than 
Washington  echoed  the  celebrated  saying  of  Pinck- 
ney :  "  Millions  for  defence,  not  a  cent  for  tribute !  " 
In  fact,  the  conduct  of  the  French  Directorate,  in 
its  aggravated  insults  to  America  at  this  time, 
caused  the  one  pang  that  thrilled  through  the  tran- 
quillity of  Mount  Vernon.  At  sixty-eight  Wash- 
ington's cup  was  full ;  the  century  was  about  to  run 
out ;  at  its  verge  where  the  old  was  about  to  become 
the  new,  where  the  eighteenth  century  with  its  storm 
and  its  calm,  its  turbulence  and  its  revolutions,  its 
wondrous  evolutions  in  politics  and  civilisation,  its 
eras  of  Anne  and  George,  Frederick  the  Great,  and 
Louis  XVI.,  and  Washington,  was  about  to  trans- 
form itself  noiselessly  into  the  century  of  Napoleon, 
of  Waterloo,  of  Victoria,  of  Sedan,  of  United  Italy 
and  Imperial  Germany:  almost  at  the  solemn  mo- 
ment of  transformation,  quick  as  a  flash,  silent  as  a 
dream,  beautiful  as  that  strange  moment  which 
Raphael  has  selected  as  the  moment  of  the  Trans- 
figuration, the  summons  came. 

It  was  a  Saturday  night,  almost  at  the  end  of  the 
century,  December  14,  1799,  that,  succumbing  to  an 
attack  of  acute  laryngitis  brought  on  by  exposure  to 
the  December  snow,  Washington  folded  his  arms 
across  his  breast,  straightened  his  limbs  decently  in 
his  bed,  and  casting  a  last  look  at  his  beloved  wife, 
sitting  in  silent  anguish  at  the  foot  of  his  bed, 
breathed  his  last. 


PEDIGREE  OF  THE  WASHINGTONS. 

THE  Washingtons,  like  the  Balls,  were  an  ancient 
and  honourable  family  long  settled  in  that  Eastern 
part  of  Virginia  whence  emanated  the  early  illus- 
trious families  of  the  Old  Dominion. 

"  Until  recently,"  says  John  Fiske,1  "  there  was 
some  uncertainty  as  to  the  pedigree  of  George  Wash- 
ington, but  the  researches  of  Mr.  Fitz  Gilbert  Waters, 
of  Salem,  have  conclusively  proved  that  he  was 
descended  from  the  Washingtons  of  Sulgrave,  in 
Northamptonshire,  a  family  that  had  for  generations 
worthily  occupied  positions  of  honour  and  trust.  In  the 
Civil  War  the  Washingtons  were  distinguished  Royal- 
ists. The  commander  who  surrendered  Worcester  in 
1646  to  the  famous  Edward  Whalley  was  Col.  Henry 
Washington;  and  his  cousin  John,  who  came  to  Vir- 
ginia in  1657,  was  great-grandfather  of  George  Wash- 
ington. After  the  fashion  that  prevailed  a  hundred 
years  ago,  the  most  illustrious  of  Americans  felt 
little  interest  in  his  ancestry ;  but  with  the  keener 
historic  sense  and  broader  scientific  outlook  of  the 

1  Old  Virginia  and  Her  Neighbours.  Houghton,  Mifflin  & 
Co-  Vol.  ii,  p.  25. 

455 


456  Appendix 

present  day,  the  importance  of  such  matters  is  better 
appreciated.  The  pedigrees  of  horses,  dogs,  and 
fancy  pigeons  have  a  value  that  is  quotable  in  terms 
of  hard  cash.  Far  more  important,  for  the  student 
of  human  affairs,  are  the  pedigrees  of  men.  By  no 
possible  ingenuity  of  constitution-making  or  of  legis- 
lation can  a  society  made  up  of  ruffians  and  boors  be 
raised  to  the  intellectual  and  moral  level  of  a  society 
made  up  of  well-bred  merchants  and  yeomen,  par- 
sons and  lawyers.  One  might  as  well  expect  to  see 
a  dray  horse  win  the  Derby.  It  is,  moreover,  only 
when  we  habitually  bear  in  mind  the  threads  of  indi- 
vidual relationship  that  connect  one  country  with 
another,  that  we  get  a  really  firm  and  concrete  grasp 
of  history.  Without  genealogy  the  study  of  history 
is  comparatively  lifeless.  No  excuse  is  needed,  there- 
fore, for  giving  in  this  connection  a  tabulated  abridg- 
ment of  the  discoveries  of  Mr.  Waters  concerning 
the  forefathers  of  George  Washington.  Beside  the 
personal  interest  attaching  to  every  thing  associated 
with  that  immortal  name,  this  pedigree  has  interest 
and  value  as  being  in  large  measure  typical.  It  is  a 
fair  sample  of  good  English  middle-class  pedigrees, 
and  it  is  typical  as  regards  the  ancestry  of  leading 
Cavalier  families  in  Virginia;  an  inspection  of  many 
genealogies  of  those  who  came  between  1649  an^ 
1670  yields  about  the  same  general  impression." 

The  intertwining  of  the  Ball  and  the  Washington 
mottoes  in  this  ever- famous  union:  Coelumque  tueri 
("  Contemplate,  the  Heavens")  and  Exitus  acta  pro- 
bat  ("  The  End  proves  the  Act ")  produced  a  result 
surpassing  the  fairest  dream  of  this  prosaic  geneal- 
ogist. 


Pedigree  of  the  Washingtons1 

ARMS.  —  Argent,  two  bars  and  in  chief  three  mullets  Gules. 

John  Washington,  of 

Whitfield,  Lancashire, 

time  of  Henry  VI. 

I 

Robert  Washington, 
of  Warton,  Lancashire,  2d  son. 

I 

John  Washington,  of 

Warton,  m.  Margaret  Kitson.  sister  of  Sir  Thomas 
Kitson,  alderman  of  London. 

Lawrence  Washington,  of  Gray's  Inn, 

mayor  of  Northampton,  obtained  grant  of  Sulgrave  Manor,   1539, 
d.  1584;  m.  Anna  Pargiter,  of  Gretworth. 


Robert  Washington,  of 
Sulgrave,  b.  1544;  m. 
Elizabeth  Light. 


Lawrence  Washington,  of 

Sulgrave  and  Brington, 

d.  1616;  m.  Margaret  Butler. 


Lawrence  Washington, 
of  Gray's  Inn,  register 
of  High  Court  of  Chancery, 
d.  1619. 

Sir  Lawrence  Washington, 
register  of  High  Court  of 
Chancery,  d.   1643. 


Rev.  Lawrence  Washington, 
M.  A.,  Fellow  of  Brasenose 
College,  Oxford,  Rector  of 
Purleigh,  d.  before  1655. 


Lawrence  Washington, 
d.  1662;  m.  Eleanor 
Gyse. 


Sir  William       Sir  John 
Washington,      Washington, 
d.  1643;  m.         d.  1678. 
Anna   Villiers, 
half-sister  of 
George   Villiers, 
Duke  of  Buckingham. 

Henry  Washington.  John  Washington,  Lawrence  Wash-  Elizabeth  Washington, 

colonel  in  the  royalist  b.  1631,  d.  1677,  came  ington,  b.  1635;  heiress,  d.  1693;  m. 

army,  governor  of  to  Virginia,  1657;  m.  came  to  Virginia,  Earl  Ferrers. 

Worcester;  d.  1664.  Anna  Pope.  1657. 

Lawrence  Washington, 

d.  1697;  m.  Mildred, 

dau.  of  Augustine  Warner. 

Augustine  Washington, 

b.  1694,  d.  1749;  m.  Mary  Ball. 

George  Washington,  b.  1732,  d.  1799. 
First  President  of  the  United  States. 


1  Old  Virginia  and  Her  Neighbours,  by  John  Fiske,  Vol.  ii,  p.  27. 
Courtesy  of  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 


457 


Appendix 

"  On  the  whole,"  continues  John  Fiske,1  "  It  was 
a  noble  type  of  rural  gentry  that  the  Old  Dominion 
had  to  show.  Manly  simplicity,  love  of  home  and 
family,  breezy  activity,  disinterested  public  spirit, 
thorough  wholesomeness  and  integrity,  —  such  were 
the  features  of  the  society  whose  consummate  flower 
was  George  Washington." 


1  Old  Virginia  and  Her  Neighbours,     Houghton,  Mifflin  & 
Co.    Vol.  ii,  p.  267. 


INDEX 


Abercrombie,  General,  in 

Adams,  John,  jealousy  of 
Washington,  123;  insists 
on  Jefferson's  writing  De- 
claration of  Independence, 
1 80;  opinion  of  Virginia, 
194;  204;  249;  member  of 
Philadelphia  Convention, 
1774,  262;  proposes  Wash- 
ington as  Commander-in- 
chief,  265;  on  committee 
to  draft  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence 280;  294; 
American  Commissioner  to 
France,  352;  Peace  Com- 
missioner, 366;  signs  peace; 
379;  Vice-President,  424, 
second  time  Vice-Presi- 
dent, 440;  President,  446; 
describes  his  inaugura- 
tion, 448 

Adams,  Samuel,  249;  char- 
acter of,  251;  his  "regi- 
ments," 255 

Adirondacks,  302 

Administrations  of  Washing- 
ton, their  characteristics, 
429 ;  second  administra- 
tion, 440 

Advertisement,  Washing- 
ton's, of  mission  to  the 
French,  56 

Age  of  Doubt,  197 

Agriculture,  Washington's 
study  of,  131 

Albany,  301 

Albemarle,  Lord,  130 


Alexandria,  138;  Christ 
Church,  attended  by  Wash- 
ington, 159 

Alfieri,  433 

Algiers,  treaty  with,  447 

Alison,  the  historian,  on 
Washington's  Farewell  Ad- 
dress, 444 

Alleghany  River,  53 

Allen,  Ethan,  276 

Alumni  (William  and  Mary 
College),  185-186;  Ban- 
croft on,  194 

"American  Association" 
pledged  to  "boycott" 
British  trade,  263 

American  commerce, 
Franklin  on,  308 

American  Commission  se- 
cures help  from  France,  299 

American  Commission  of 
Peace  (1783),  366 

American     life,    2,     194-196 

American  navy  originated 
by  John  Paul  Jones,  360 

American  Revolution,  con- 
sequences of,  215;  Jeffer- 
son's opinion  of  its  causes, 
258-259;  Walpole  on,  346; 
Jefferson's  estimate  of  cost 
of,  $170,000,000,  404 

Ammunition      needed,      275 

"Anderson"    (Major  Andre), 

33° 

Andre,  Major,  corresponds 
with  Mrs.  Arnold;  279;  329; 
interview  with  Arnold, 
330;  character  of,  330; 
execution  described  by 
Thacher,  332 


459 


460 


Index 


Annapolis,  Congress  at,  382; 

383 

"Apollo  Room"  (Raleigh 
Tavern),  175;  (Phi  Beta 
Kappa  Society),  188;  261 

Aranda,  Count,  predicts 
greatness  of  America,  389 

Arbuthnot,  Admiral,  326 

"Arcady,"  125-145 

Arms  of  the  Washingtons, 
145;  and  see  appendix 

Armstrong,  Major,  incites  in- 
surrection, 363 

Arnold,  Benedict,  276;  290; 
defeated  on  Lake  Cham- 
plain,  301;  influence  on 
Burgoyne's  surrender, 
career  and  character,  304; 
treason  of,  328;  Washing- 
ton's account  of,  330;  re- 
morse, 331;  in  Virginia, 
340;  burns  Richmond,  etc., 
341;  Washington  to,  on 
religion,  376 

Articles  of  Peace,  380 

Atkin  put  over  Washington, 
105 

Austin,  J.  L.,  messenger  from 
Congress,  349 


B 


Bacon,  Nathaniel,  164 

Bahamas,  50 

Baker's  Itinerary  of  Wash- 
ington quoted,  274,  364 

Ball,  Joseph,  brother  of  Mrs. 
Washington;  his  letter  in- 
terfering with  George's  en- 
tering the  British  navy,  30 

Ball,  Mary,  character  of,  9 

Baltimore,  the  Lords,  155 

Baltimore  (city) ,  Congress 
flees  to,  297 

Bancroft,  George,  quoted, 
194;  on  Navigation  Act, 
205-208;  describes  Re- 
venue Act,  2 10-2 1 3 ;  Stamp 
Act,  212;  opinion  of  Frank- 
lin. 350-351 


Barbadoes,  50 

Bassett,     Col.,   Washington 

writes  to,  161 
Bastille,  key  of,  433 
Battle  of  Bennington,  303 
Battle  of  Blenheim,  145 
Battle  of  Brandywine,  307 
Battle  of  Brooklyn  Heights, 

293 
Battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  271; 

losses  at,  293 
Battle  of  Camden,  333 
Battle  of  Cowpens,  338 
Battle     of     Guilford     Court 

House,  338 
Battle  of   King's   Mountain, 

338 

Battle  of  Lexington,  264 
Battle   of   Monmouth   Court 

House,  317 

Battle  of  Princeton,  294 
"Battle     of    the     Mononga- 

hela,"    described  by  Wash- 
ington, 98 

Battle  of  Trenton,  294 
Bauman,  Col.,  428 
Beaufort,  Duke  of,  187 
Beaumarchais,  350 
Bemis's  Heights,  303 
Bennington,  battle,  303 
Berkeley,    Sir   William,   164; 

opposes      public     schools, 

174;  174-175 
Bernard,     describes     Stamp 

Act,  194 

Beverley,    Col.    Robert,    de- 
scribes Virginia,   18 
"Birth  of  the  Constitution," 

388-421 
"Bishop,"  Washington's 

body-servant,  118 
Blair,  "Master,"  181 
Bland,  Richard,  183;  chosen 

delegate     to    Convention, 

1774,  261 

Board  of  Trade,  210 
Bohea    (Boston     "Tea 

Party"),  259 
Bolingbroke,  Lord,  299 
Boscawen,  Vice-Admiral,   79 


Index 


461 


Boston,  230,  234,  238;  popu- 
lation at  beginning  of 
Revolution,  246;  tea  ships 
arrive,  254  ;  Provincial 
troops  assemble  at,  268; 
the  Common,  270;  siege  of, 
2 73;  taken,  278;  President 
Washington  at,  432 

Boston  ''Massacre,"  250 

Boston  Port  Bill,  259,  260 

Boston  "Tea-Party"  249, 
250 

Botetourt,  Lord,  149;  statue 
at  Williamsburg,  166,  182; 
establishes  medals  at  Wil- 
liam and  Mary  College, 
176;  burial-place,  (?),  187 

Boucher,  Dr.,  154,  155 

Bouquet,  Col.,  184 

"Boycotting"  suggested  by 
Washington,  225;  and 
George  Mason,  229 

Boyle,  Robert,  founds  Indian 
school  at  Williamsburg, 

f73'  1J7 

Boy's  Journal  (Washing- 
ton's), 34,  38 

Braddock,  Gen.,  68 ;  sails 
for  America,  79,  80;  his 
plan  disclosed  to  Franklin, 
81;  his  character,  82,  83; 
defeat  and  death,  85-102; 
last  words,  97 

Brandywine,   battle  of,  307 

Breed's  Hill,  272 

Breymann,  301 

British  Commission  at  New 
York,  294 

British  forces,  commanders 
of,  at  siege  of  Boston,  276 

British  regulars,  99;  Frank- 
lin's opinion  of,  104;  291 

Broglie,  Prince  de,  361 

Brooklyn     Heights,     battle, 

293 

Brougham,  Lord,  quoted  on 
Lord  Chatham,  268 

Bruce,  Philip,  Economic:  His- 
tory of  Virginia  in  the 
Seventeenth  Century,  23 


Bruton  Church,  Williams- 
burg, 167,  181;  described 
by  J.  E.  Cooke,  187-188 

Buccaneers,  208 

Buffalo,  185 

Bunker  Hill,  272;  obelisk  on, 

273 

Bunker  Hill,  battle  of,  271 

Burgesses  of  Virginia,  de- 
scribed, 149;  dismissed  by 
Lord  Dunmore,  190 

Burgoyne,  Gen.,  at  Boston, 
276;  activity  of,  301;  cam- 
paign on  Cham  plain,  301; 
surrenders,  304 ;  conse- 
quences, 310;  350 

Burke,  Edmund,  146;  esti- 
mates cost  of  American 
War,  215;  257;  on  con- 
ciliation, 275 

Burnaby,  A.,  travels  in 
America,  describes  Mount 
Vernon,  125;  depicts  Vir- 
ginians, 132-133;  at  Wil- 
liamsburg, 164 

Burney,  Capt.,  367 

Burney,  Miss,  254;  opinion  of 
George  III.,  258;  290 

Burr,  Aaron,  277 

Burwell,  Rebecca  (Jeffer- 
son's "fair  Belinda"),  172 

Bushfield,  140 

Bute,  ministry  of,  210;  212 

Butler,  Jane,  first  wife  of 
Augustine  Washington, 
her  sons,  10 

Byrd,  William,  of  Westover, 
History  of  the  Dividing 
Line,  20;  144,  156,  176, 
177;  founds  Richmond,  182 


Cabinet,  of  Washington,  428; 

second  Cabinet  of,  442 
Cadwallader,  Gen.,  317 
"  Caesar  had  his  Brutus,"  etc. 

(incident),  218 
Cal  verts,  the    (of  Maryland), 

intermarry  with  the  Cus- 

tises,  155 


462 


Index 


Cambridge,  Washington  at, 
272 

Camden,  Lord,  257 

Camden,  battle  of,  333;  336 

Campbell,  Col.,  338 

Campbell,  the  poet,  on 
Kosciuszko,  300;  Ger- 
trude of  Wyoming,  325 

Canada,  67,  197,  198;  opera- 
tions in,  290 

Canal  projected  by  Wash- 
ington, etc.,  406 

Canova,  the  sculptor,  433 

Capel  and  Osgood  Hanbury, 
Washington's  letter  to,  192 

Capitals  (of  Virginia),  163 

Carleton,  Sir  Guy,  277,  301; 
Peace  Commissioner,  357; 
announces  terms  of  peace, 

369 

Carlton  House  described  by 
Thackeray,  383 

Carolina,  290 

Carpenters'  Hall,  Philadel- 
phia Convention  meets  at, 
261 

Carrington,     Mrs.     Edward, 

121,    122 

Carter,  Councillor,  140,  144 

Cartier,  Jacques,  48 

Gary,  Mary,  34 

Gary,  Robert,  Washington's 
letter  to,  193 

Cary,  Robert,  &  Co.,  Wash- 
ington's letter  to,  126;  127, 

138 

Catharine  of  Russia,  311 
Census  of  the  United    States 

(the  first),  430 
Census  of  Virginia,  112 
Chamberlayne,  Mr.,  117 
Chambly,  277 
Champlain,   Lake,  campaign 

on,  277;  301 
Charleston,   defence  of,   29 1 ; 

326,    334;    evacuated     by 

British,  357 

Charlotte    (N.  Carolina),  336 
Charlottesville,  T  a  r  1  e  t  o  n's 

raid  on,  341 


Chastellux,  Marquis  de,  145; 
describes  Washington,  331 

Chateaubriand,  describes  In- 
dians, 203 ;  on  Washington, 

433 

Chatham,  Lord,  quoted  on 
American  policy,  257;  on 
Gen.  Gage,  268;  269;  op- 
poses Indian  warfare,  295 

Chesapeake  Bay,  Lord  Howe 
sails  up,  307 

Christ  Church  (Alexandria), 
attended  by  Washington 
after  the  Revolution,  159 

Cincinnati,  156 

Cincinnati,  Society  of,  found- 
ed. 378-379;  4i3 

Circular  Letters  (of  legis- 
latures), 250 

Circular  Letter  (Washing- 
ton's), to  thirteen  States, 
372 

City  Hall  (Wall  Street,  New 
York),  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence read  in,  283 

Clark,  George  Rogers,  con- 
quers North- Western  Terri- 
tory, 391;  e  x  p  edition 
described  by  Lodge,  392; 
P.  Henry  on,  393-394 

Clement  XIV,  311 

Clinton,  Gov.,  371 

Clinton,  Sir  Henry,  272;  at 
Charleston,  29 1 ;  evacuates 
Philadelphia,  317;  326,  334 

Clive,  Lord,  327 

"Cockatrice's  Egg,"  214-239 

Colonial,  life  in  America,  3, 
133;  Christmas,  139 

Colonies,   impatience  of,  198 

Colonies,  the  north-eastern, 
character  of,  244 

Colville,  Admiral,  enforces 
Navigation  Act,  207 

Commander-in-chief  (Wash- 
ington), 265 

Commissary  Department, 
condition  of,  313 

Committees  of  Correspond- 
ence, 200,  250,  263 


Index 


463 


Common,  the  Boston,  270 

Concord,  battle  near,  264 

Congress,  first  American,  in 
1690,  52 

Congress,  incompetency  of, 
298;  32 7;  mistreats  Arnold, 
Morgan,  etc.,  333;  340; 
McMaster  on,  403 ;  meets 
at  Philadelphia,  432 

' '  Conotoca  r i  us, "  "  Destroyer 
of  Cities,"  Indian  nick- 
name for  Washington,  1 1 1 

Constitution,  the  American, 
Gladstone's  opinion  of, 
149;  its  evolution  in  1787, 
416;  a  compromise,  418 

Constitution  of  the  United 
States  ratified,  420 

Continental  Congress,  first 
clerk  of,  252;  Chatham's 
opinion  of,  257 

Continental  Policy,   the,  298 

Contraband,  208 

Contrecceur,  French  com- 
mander, 69 

Convention  called  Aug.  i, 
1774,  261 

Convention  (May,  1786), 
John  Adams  on,  194 

Convention  of  States  sug- 
gested by  Virginia,  i 786, 408 

Convention  of  Virginia  (2d 
Revolutionary,  1775),  264 

Conway,  intrigues  of,  317 

Conway,  M.  D.,  describes 
Washington's  "Rules  of 
Civility,"  13;  on  Washing- 
ton's character,  34;  35,  36 

Conway  Cabal,  machinations 
of,  316 

Cooke,  John  Esten,  describes 
William  and  Mary  College, 
185-186 

"Cornstalk,"  203 

Cornwallis,  Lord,  284,  291, 
294,  326;  defeats  Gates  at 
Camden,  333;  marches  for 
Yorktown,  340;  reaches 
Yorktown,  342 ;  surrenders, 
342 


Correspondence,  Committees 
of,  263 

Correspondence  (Washing- 
ton's), 397 

Courts  of  Admiralty  estab- 
lished by  Grenville,  207 

Cowpens,  battle  of,  338 

"Craigie  House,"  142;  Wash- 
ington's headquarters,  273 

Cresap,  Col.,  40 

Crevecceur,  Hector  St.  John 
de,  Washington's  letter  to, 
on  presidency,  425 

Crisis,  the,  arrives,  238 

Crown  Point,  105,  277,  291 

Cully,  119 

Cumberland,  Duke  of,  head 
of  military  affairs,  210 

Currency,  condition  of,  321; 
coins,  405 

"Curriculum,"  Washington's, 

51 

Custis,  Col.  Daniel  Parke, 
his  widow,  33;  first  hus- 
band of  Martha  Washing- 
ton, 116;  his  children  by 
her,  116 

Custis,  G.  W.  P.,  account  of 
Washington's  mother,  7 ;  8, 
9;  describes  Washington's 
courtship  and  marriage, 
1 17;  his  Recollections,  353; 
describes  Washington's 
visit  to  his  mother,  353- 

Custis,  "  Jackie, "  (John 
Parke),  136,  155;  enters 
King's  College,  New  York, 
155;  death,  353 

Custis,  Nellie,  141,  353;  on 
"  Farmer  Washington, "449 ; 
marries  Lawrence  Lewis, 

452 
Custis,  Patsy,  136;  dies,  160 


D 

Dale,  Sir  Thomas,  admiration 
of  Virginia,  24 


464 


Index 


Dandridge,  Mrs.  (Martha 
Washington's  mother) ,  1 6 1 

Dandridge,  Francis  (Mrs. 
Washington's  uncle),  letter 
to,  191 

Dandridge,  Martha,  (the 
widow  Custis) ,  marries 
Washington,  116  ;  de- 
scribed, 115;  personal  ap- 
pearance, 120-122;  125 

Dartmouth,  Earl  of,  anec- 
dote, 262 

Date  of  Washington's  mar- 
riage, 324 

Davies,  Rev.  Samuel,  opinion 
of  Washington,  146-147 

"Day  Star  of  the  Revolu- 
tion "  (Patrick  Henry), 
219 

"Deadly  Tea-Chest,"  the, 
240-255 

Deane,  Silas,  opinion  of 
Southerners,  262 

De  Barras,  Admiral,  at  New- 
port, 340 

Declaration  of  Independence, 
275;  proclaimed  July  4, 
1776,  279;  opening  para- 
graphs, 280;  read  to  troops, 
283 

Declaration    of    Rights,    181 

De  Grasse,  Count,  299;  sails 
for  Yorktown,  340;  arrives, 
342 ;  defeated  and  captured, 

359 
De   Heister   (commander    of 

the  Hessians),  291 
De  Kalb,  299 
Delaware  capes,  Sir  W.  Howe 

appears  at,  307 
Delaware  River,  crossing  of, 

294 
Democratic  government,  evils 

of,  410 

Deserters,  293 
D'Estaing,  Count,  300 
Detroit,  393 
"Devilsburg"        (Jefferson's 

name    for    Williamsburg), 

172 


Dickinson,  John,  hopes  for 
reconciliation ,  275 

Dictator,  Washington  ap- 
pointed, 296 

Digby,  Admiral,  Peace  Com- 
missioner, 357 

Dinwiddie,  Governor,  selects 
Washington,  53,  54,  57; 
commissions  Washington, 
65;  instructions  to  Wash- 
ington, 69 ;  describes 
Washington's  capture  at 
Fort  Necessity,  77;  Wash- 
ington's letter  describing 
Braddock's  defeat,  98- 
100;  writes  to  Abercrom- 
bie  about  Washington, 
in;  sends  census  of  Vir- 
ginia to  London  Board  of 
Trade,  112;  leaves  for 
England,  112 

Diplomacy  of  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, 66,  352 

Dismal  Swamp,  to  drain,  156 

Dispatches  to  Congress  estab- 
lished by  Washington,  275 

District  of  Columbia,  432 

Disunion,  threatened,  401; 
403,  408,  430 

Dobbs  Ferry,  first  salute 
fired  in  honour  of  American 
nation,  371 

Dorchester  Heights,  278 

Dray  ton,  the  poet,  Ode  to 
Virginia,  174 

Dunbar,  Col.,  96,  99 

Dunmore,  Lord,  arrives,  155; 
seeks  Washington's  advice, 
156;  character,  156;  at 
Williamsburg,  164-177, 
palace  at  Williamsburg, 
166-167;  flees,  188;  ad- 
dresses Burgesses,  189 ; 
Washington's  relations 
with,  260-261;  dissolves 
Burgesses,  261;  "Gun- 
powder" affair,  265 

Duquesne,  Fort,  61,  64,  69, 
81,  105,  1 13,  120 

Duty  on  tea,  233 


Index 


465 


East    India    Company,    the, 

327 

East  Indies,  327 

"Ebbing  Tide,"  345~365 

Eden,  Governor,  155 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  writings 
of,  200;  Aaron  Burr  grand- 
son of,  277 

Eighteenth  century  in  Amer- 
ica, characteristics  of,  1 2 ; 
scepticism  of,  197 

Elizabeth  town,  winter  quar- 
ters at,  323 

Elk  River,  307 

Ellicott,  432 

"Emancipation,"   204 

Erie,  Fort,  53 

Erskine,  Thomas,  Lord,  on 
Washington,  436 

Etiquette  of  Washington's 
administration,  429,  430 


"Fabian  Policy"  284,  288 
Fairfax,     Bryan,     Washing- 
ton's letters  to,  on  taxa- 
tion, 230—238:231 
Fairfax,  Col.  George,  34 
Fairfax,   Thomas,   Lord,  23; 
resides  at  Greenway  Court, 
26,    engages     Washington 
as   surveyor,  32;  described 
by  Woodrow  Wilson,  36,  73 
Fairfax    County,    resolutions 

of  its  inhabitants,  231 
"Fairfax  Resolves,"  260 
Fairfaxes,  Belvoir,  28 
Farewell,      to       his      army, 
Washington's,  379;  to  his 
country,    445 ;    authorship 

of,  445 

Fasting,  day  of,  261 
Fauntleroy,  Betsy,  34 
Fauquier,      Governor,      177; 

letter  to  Halifax  on  Stamp 

Act,  193-194 


"Federal  City"  planned  and 
laid  out,  432 

Federal  Convention  (at 
Philadelphia,  1787),  412; 
its  members,  414;  diarists 
of,  415 

Federal  Union,  origin  de- 
scribed by  Marshall,  411 ;  a 
compromise,  418;  ratified, 
420 

Federalism,  414 

Ferguson,  337 

Fire    (at  Williamsburg) ,  182 

"First  Citizen  of  the  United 
States,"  422-448 

Fiscal  policy,  435 

Fiske,  John,  describes  the 
French,  52;  enumerates 
five  leaders  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, 1 76 ;  on  tea,  as  symbol 
of  tyranny,  242;  on  Wash- 
ington's military  capacity, 
285;  on  Washington's 
"Circular  Letter,"  377;  on 
problems  involved  in 
Treaty  of  Paris,  389 

Fithian,  Master,  describes 
Virginia  life,  140,  143 ;  dies, 
144 

Fitzhugh,  Col.  William,  64 

Five  Governors  (Sharpe, 
Shirley,  Delancy,  Morris, 
and  Dinwiddie)  consult, 
82-83 

Flag,  the  first,  unfurled  at 
Cambridge,  277;  described, 
278 

Fleming,  WTilliam,  222 

Fleur-de-lis,  201 

Florida,  443 

Ford,  Paul  Leicester,  de- 
scribes Martha  Washing- 
ton, 123;  171,  172 

Ford,  W.  C.,  75,  230,  268 

Foreign  officers,  299 

"Forms  of  Writing,"  Wash- 
ington's copy-book,  12 

Fort  Cumberland,  90;  Cum- 
berland, 91 

Fort  Necessity,  77,  90 


466 


Index 


Fort  Niagara,  65,  8 1 

Fort  Washington,  144,  279; 
surrenders,  293 

"Four  Georges,"  the  (Thack- 
eray's), 258 

Fourth  of  July,  1776,  Declar- 
ation of  Independence, 
279 

Fox,  Charles  James,  146,  346; 
on  Washington,  434 

France.influence  of,i6 ;  power 
of,  78;  war  with,  105; 
Walpole's  opinion  of,  202; 
sends  help,  299;  300;  ac- 
knowledges America's  in- 
dependence, 311;  alliance 
with  America,  315;  loan, 
340;  war  with  England, 

43° 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  con- 
trasted with  Washington, 
83,  84;  invents  harmoni- 
cum,  140,  199,200;  insulted 
in  London,  260;  Franklin, 
Benjamin,  on  Committee 
to  draft  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence, 280;  Commis- 
sioner, 294;  on  American 
population  and  commerce, 
308;  gets  loan  fromFrance, 
340;  seen  at  his  lodg- 
ings, 349',  his  char- 
acter as  diplomat,  350; 
Peace  Commissioner,  366; 
signs  Peace,  380;  work  as 
commissioner,  380;  Lecky 
on,  381 ;  pa  per  on  American 
Constitution,  417 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  auto- 
biography, 79,  80 

"Franklin,"  State  of,  409 

Frederick  the  Great,  196; 
ridicules  mercenaries,  278; 
admires  Washington,  284 

Fredericksburg,  Washington 
at,  354 

French,  the,  described  by 
Fiske,  52;  their  mission 
work,  55-56;  troops  return 
to  France,  366 


French  and  Indian  wars, 
cost  of,  179 

French  fleet  dispersed  at 
Newport,  324 

French  Revolution,  438,  441 

Freneau  attacks  Washing- 
ton, 436 

Frontier  1  fe,  104 

Fry,  Col.  Joshua,  69,  73 

G 

Gage,  Gen.  93;  conduct  at 
Boston,  234;  238;  Lexing- 
ton, 264;  Lord  Chatham 
on, 268; 277 

Gardner,  Col.,  272 

Gates,  Gen.,  275,  291;  plots 
against  Washington,  297; 
supersedes  Schuyler,  303; 
injustice  to  Arnold,  305 ; 
announces  Burgoyne's  sur- 
render, 310;  intrigues,  317; 
head  of  Southern  Depart- 
ment, 333;  defeated  at 
Camden,  333;  Lodge  on 
Gates,  335-336;  anony- 
mous articles  attributed  to, 
363;  364;  put  in  command 
of  right  wing,  366 

Gazette,  the  Williamsburg, 
142,  237 

General  Assembly  of  Vir- 
ginia, its  powers,  217 

Genesee,  valley  of,  325 

Genet,  French  Minister,  in- 
sults America,  435;  442 

Gentleman's  Magazine  the, 
describes  Washington's  re- 
signation, 385 

George  III,  presents  commun- 
ion service  to  Bruton 
Church,  1 88;  200; sanctions 
Navigation  Act,  207; 
Patrick  Henry  on,  218; 
Miss  Burney's  opinion  on, 
258;  Jefferson's  opinion  of, 
258;  "The  die  is  cast," 
288;  described  by  J.  R. 
Green,  289;  insults  John 


Index 


467 


George  Til — Continued 

Adams,  352;  signs  Articles 
of  Peace,  380 

Georgian  Era,  254 

Gerard,  M.  (French    envoy), 

323 

Germane,  Lord  George,    352 

German  town,  307 

Gerry,  of  Massachusetts,  op- 
poses Constitution,  421 

Gertrude  of  Wyoming,  325 

Gibson  upon  Horses,  Wash- 
ington's study  of,  131 

Gist,  Mr.,  guide,  57 

"Give  me  liberty,  or  give  me 
death,"  264 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  opinion  of 
American  Constitution,  149 

"Glimmering    Taper,"    449- 

453 

Goethe,  408 
Golden  Age  of  the  Republic, 

436 

"Golden  Milestone,"  146- 
162 

Government,  cost  of  (eight- 
eenth century),  202 

Green,  Rev.  Charles,  rector  of 
Truro  Parish,  156-157 

Green,  John  Richard,  de- 
scribes Washington,  287; 
on  George  III,  289 

Greene,  Gen.,  describes 
Washington's  appearance, 
274;  307;  at  Monmouth, 
320;  supersedes  Gates,  338; 
captures  Charleston,  357; 
congratulated  by  Wash- 
ington on  Charleston  cam- 
paign, 367 

Greene,  Nathaniel,  Mrs.,  141, 
323 

Greenway  Court,  17,  37 

Grenville,  Lord,  205 ;  defends 
Navigation  Act,  206-207; 
2 1 1 ;  peace,  366 

Gridley,  Col.,  272 

Griffiths,  Rev.  David,  dis- 
covers Lee's  treachery,  318 

"Grog,"  origin  of  term,  28 


Growth  of  communities,  194- 

iQS 

Guilford  Court  House,  battle 
of,  338 

"Gunpowder"  affair  (in  Vir- 
ginia), 265 

"Gunston  Hall,"  143;  the 
Madson's  of,  144 


H 


Haldimund  (Governor-Gen- 
eral of  Quebec),  359 

Hale,  Nathan,  331 

"Half-King,"  the,  Washing- 
ton's address  to,  60;  70,  72, 

73 

Halifax,  Earl  of,  193,  194, 
210 

Halket,  Sir  Peter,  99 

Hamilton,  English  com- 
mander in  the  West,  391 

Hamilton,  Governor  of  Penn- 
sylvania, 54 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  176, 
318,  319;  at  Yorktown, 
342;  letter  from  Washing- 
ton on  Peace,  368;  urges 
Washington  to  accept 
presidency,  422;  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  428 ;  urges, 
Washington's  re-election, 

438 

Hampton  Roads,  48 

Hancock,  John,  president  of 
Second  Revolutionary  Con- 
gress, 265;  anecdote  of,  433 

Hanson  Samuel,  423 

Harland,  Marion,  description 
of  Washington's  home,  5-6 

Harlem  Heights,  defended, 
279 

Harlem  Plains,  battle,  293 

Harrison,  Benjamin,  delegate 
to  Convention,  1774,  261; 
322;  letter  to,  from  Wash- 
ington, 395 

Harrisons  (of  Brandon),   144 


468 


Index 


Hartley,  David,  signs  Peace, 

379 
Harvard,  John,  birth,  founds 

Harvard  College,  247 
Harvard    College,   166,    173, 
248;     Washington     lodges 
at,  273;  confers  LL.D.  on 
Washington,  278 
Hastings,  Warren,  327 
"Heart  of  the  Revolution," 

283  seqq. 

Heights  of  Abraham,  201 
Henry,  Patrick,  examined  in 
law  at  Williamsburg,  171; 
character  of,  179;  first 
American  Governor  of  Vir- 
ginia, 180;  189,  196;  reso- 
lutions of,  189;  his  own 
account  of  their  origin, 
221-222;  delegate  to  Con- 
vention, 1774,  261;  draws 
up  Bill  of  Grievances,  262; 
dominates  second  Virginia 
Revolutionary  Convention, 
1775,  264;  captain  in 
"Gunpowder"  affair,  265; 
commissions  George  Rogers 
Clark,  391;  to  Legislature, 
on  Clark's  success,  393; 
opposes  ratification  of  the 
Constitution,  1787,  420 
Hessians,  291;  captured,  296 
Hobby,  Master,  sexton,  n 
Home  industries  in  the 

colonies,  255 

Horses,  names  of  Washing- 
ton's, 132 

Houdon     the    sculptor,    433 
House    of    Burgesses     (Wil- 
liamsburg) ,    described    by 
Hugh  Jones,  170;  175,  178 
House  of  Commons,  201,  209, 

2IS 

House  of  Hanover,  220 
House  of  Lords,  202,  209 
"How  I    Became  a    Rebel" 

(Washington),  224-238 
Howe,  Gen.  Lord,  resistance 
at  Boston,   2 72;  wounded, 
273;  retreats  from  Boston, 


278;      lands     on      Staten 

Island,    279;    291;    enters 

Philadelphia,  307 
Hudson  Highlands,  324 
Hudson  River,  291,  293 
Hughes,       John,       describes 

Stamp  Act,  194 
Humphreys,  Col.,  426 
Hunting  Creek,  residence  of 

the  Washingtons,  13 
"Hunting  Lodge,"  or  "  Epse- 

wasson"    (Mount  Vernon), 

51 

Hutchinson,  writings  of,  200; 
249;  "spy"  letters,  249; 
260 


I 


Immigration  to  America,  17 

Imports,  229 

Inauguration  of  Washington, 

426;  ceremonies,  427 
Indentured  servants,  14 
Independence  acknowledged 

by  France,  311 
India  Company,   East,    230; 

tea  in  warehouses,  243 
Indian  policy  of  Washington, 

437 

Indians,  Pamunkies,  Chicka- 
hominies,  Shawnees,  Min- 
gos,  Cherokees,  48;  73; 
their  nature,  62;  198,  203; 
Lord  Chatham  on,  295- 
296;  301;  Six  Nations,  325  ; 
390;  Washington's  policy 
towards,  437 

"Indians"  (of  Boston  Tea- 
Party),  249 

"Inviolable  union,"  Wash- 
ington on, 368-369;  421 

Invoice,  Washington's,  to  R. 
Gary  &  Co.,  127-129;  139 

Iroquois,  95,  325 


Jackson,     Richard,     opposes 
Stamp  Act,  212 


Index 


469 


Jackson,    Robert,    101-102; 
letter  to,  describing  Brad- 
dock's  defeat,  101-102 
Jacobins,  the,  435,  441 
James,    Major,   anecdote   of, 

334 

James  I,  charters  and  privi- 
leges, 216 

James  River  and  Kanawha 
Canal  project,  156 

James  River,  Falls  of,  182 

Jamestown,  17,  177;  first 
capital  of  Virginia  163;  164; 
described  by  Hugh  Jones, 
1 68 

Jay,  John,  350;  American 
Commissioner  to  France, 
352;  Peace  Commissioner, 
366;  signs  Peace,  380; 
Secretary  of  State,  428; 
first  Chief  Justice  of  U.  S. 
Supreme  Court,  435;  sent 
to  England  to  negotiate 
treaty,  442 

Jefferson,  Peter,  69;  con- 
structs map  of  Virginia, 
406 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  educated 
at  William  and  Mary 
College,  149;  1 60;  suggests 
Richmond  for  capital  of 
Virginia,  171;  student  at 
Williamsburg,  171;  first 
letter  from,  172;  gets  sur- 
veyor's license  at  William 
and  Mary  College,  175; 
learning,  180;  Governor, 
182;  founds  University  of 
Virginia,  183;  anecdote  of, 
189;  account  of  debate  on 
Henry's  "Resolutions," 
217;  on  Henry's  "Resolu- 
tions," 222— 223;  opinion  of 
George  III,  and  causes  of 
American  Revolution,  258; 
writes  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence, 280;  estimates 
cost  of  war,  404;  Secretary 
of  State,  428;  urges  Wash- 
ington's re-election,  439 


Jenkinson  (Secretary  of  the 
Treasury) ,  favours  Stamp 
Act,  212 

Jersey  campaign,  294 

Jesuit  fathers,  15,  203 

Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  241; 
ridicules  Americans,  260 

Johnson,  Thomas  (of  Mary- 
land) ,  nominates  Wash- 
ington commander-in-chief , 
266 

Johnston,  George,  supports 
Henry's  "Resolutions," 
218;  Jefferson  on,  222 

Jones,  Hugh,  "The  State  of 
Virginia,"  chaplain  of,  21- 
22;  describes  Williams- 
burg,  168-171 

Jones,  John  Paul,  originates 
American  navy,  360 

Journal  of  Washington,  giv- 
ing account  of  his  mission 
to  the  French,  56-57 

Jumonville,  M.,  killed,  71;  75 


K 


Kanawha,  the   Great,   river, 

151;  canal,  156 
Kaskaskia,  391 
"King  George's  man,"  52 
King  of  Spain,  401 
King's  Bridge,  279 
King's  College    (New  York), 

I55 
King's  Mountain,  battle  of, 

"Knights  of  the  Golden 
Horse  Shoe,"  177,  185 

Knox,  Gen.,  323;  on  alliance, 
323;  suggests  "Society  of 
Cincinnati,"  378;  letter 
from  Washington  to,  396; 
writes  to  Washington,  405; 
letter  from  Washington  on 
the  presidency,  425 ;  Secre- 
tary of  War,  428 

Kosciuszko,  299,  300 


470 


Index 


"La  Belle  Riviere"  (the 
Ohio),  64 

La  Fayette,  1 6 ;  lays  corner- 
stone of  obelisk  on  Bun- 
ker's Hill,  273;  299,  300; 
describes  American  army 
at  Valley  Forge,  313;  317; 
in  Virginia,  340;  letter 
from  Washington  on  dread 
of  disunion,  3 69;  Washing- 
ton on  religion,  3  76;  letter 
from  Washington  on  Mount 
Vernon,  395;  visits  Wash- 
ington, 397;  letter  from 
Washington  on  inland  nav- 
igation, 407 ;  on  the  powers 
of  Congress,  410;  on  the 
preisdency,  423 

Lake  George,  303 

Latin  verses  (William  and 
Mary  College),  188 

Laurens,  father  and  son,  346 

Laurens,  Col.  John,  letter 
from  Washington  to,  359; 
366 

Lauzun,  Due  de,  346 

"League  of  Friendship,"  409 

Le  Bceuf,  Fort,  63,  65 

Lecky,  historian,  quoted, 
257;  on  Franklin,  381 

Lee  (of  Stratford  and  Chantil- 

ly),  M4 

Lee,  Charles  ("soldier  of 
fortune"),  276;  captured, 
294;  hatching  treason,  315 ; 
treachery  at  Monmouth 
Court  House,  317 

Lee,  "Light  Horse"  Harry, 
3°7.  338 

Lee,  Richard  Henry,  chosen 
delegate  to  Convention, 
1774,  261 ;  draws  up  Bill  of 
Grievances,  262 ;  275 ;  letter 
from  Washington  propos- 
ing inland  navigation 
scheme,  407 

Leisler,  Jacob,  convenes  first 
American  Congress,  52 


L' Enfant,  Major,  432 
Leslie,  Lieutenant,  describes 

Braddock's  defeat,  95 
Lewis,  Andrew,  285 
Lewis,  Fielding,  327 
Lexington,   battle  of,  264 
"Liberty,       Property,       No 

Stamps"  (cry  1765-1775), 

240 
Library      (of     William    and 

Mary  College),  its  contents, 

.J73;  l83 

Lincoln,  Gen.,  surrenders 
Charleston,  326;  at  York- 
town,  343,  344,  404 

Literature,  American,  200 

Little  Meadows,  91 

Livingston,  Robert,  on  com- 
mittee to  draft  Declaration 
of  Independence,  280 

Livingston,  R.  R.,  adminis- 
ters oath  of  office  to  Wash- 
ington, 427 

Locke,  John,  299 

Lodge,  H.  C.,  quoted  on  Loy- 
alists, 334-335;  describes 
backwoodsmen,  337;  on 
Washington  quelling  in- 
surrection, 363;  on  Wash- 
ington's resignation,  386; 
on  conquest  of  North- 
western Territory,  392 

Logan,  203 

London  Magazine,  quotes 
Washington,  77 

Longfellow  House,  Washing- 
ton's headquarters,  273 

Long  Island,  279;  defensive 
works  on,  279 

Lossing,  Washington  and 
the  American  Republic 
147;  describes  Williams- 
burg,  165;  consequemces  of 
Burgoyne's  surrender,  310; 
quoted  on  England's  de- 
feat, 388-389 

Loudon,  Lord,  105,  in,  130 

Louis  Philippe,  451 

Louis  XV,  King  of  France, 
65,  200 


Index 


Louis  XVI,  executed,  441 

Louisville,  156 

"Lowland  Beauty,"  34 

Loyalists,  283;  of  the  Caro- 
Unas,  334;  337 

Luzerne,  M.  (French  Min- 
ister), 325 

M 

Maclay     (of     Pennsylvania), 

436 

McHenr}',  James,  360;  letter 
from  Washington  describ- 
ing occupations  at  Mount 
Vernon,  449 

McMaster,  J.  B.,  quoted,  403 
Madison,  Bishop,  first  bishop 

of  Virginia,  187 
Madison,  Mrs.  Dolly,  416 
Madison,  James,  hostility  to 
P.     Henry,     222;      inland 
navigation,   406;  on    Fed- 
eral Convention,  1787, 412; 
keeps  a  private  journal  of, 
415;  its  importance,   415- 
416 

Maine,  244 

Mann,  Sir  Horace,  letter  to, 
from  Walpole  on  American 
Revolution,  214 
Marie  Antoinette    executed 

441 

Marion,  Gen.,  285,  338 
Marksmen,  American,  304 
Marshal,  John,  Life  of 
Washington,  148,  149; 
educated  at  William  and 
Mary  College,  175;  bio- 
grapher and  jurist,  409; 
on  origin  of  the  Federal 
Union,  411,  414;  on  Wash- 
ington's first  administra- 
tion, 443 ;  summarises 
Washington's  policies,  446 
Marye,  James,  school  founded 
by  him  at  Fredericksburg, 
attended  by  three  presi- 
dents, 14 


Maryland,  population,  138; 
suggests  Convention  of 
States,  1785,  408 

Mason,  George,  157;  Wash- 
ington's letter  to,  on  taxa- 
tion, 224-228;  answers, 
228-230;  "The  Fairfax 
Resolves,"  260;  opposes 
Federal  Constitution,  417 

Masons  elect  Washington 
member,  396 

Massachusetts,  men  of,  196; 
244,  seqq.,  denned,  244; 
calls  Convention,  1774,  261 ; 
troops  furnished  by,  270 

Massachusetts  Bay,  crisis  in 
the  colony  of,  238;  charac- 
teristics of,  246 

"Massacre,  The  Boston,"  250 

Maurepas,  M.  de,  quotes 
Racine  on  Cornwallis,  346 

Maury,  Rev.  James,  takes 
part  in  the  Parsons'  Case, 
220 

Maxims  of  the  "Rules  of 
Civility,"  15 

Mayflower,  the,  245 

Meade,  Bishop,  30,  122;  de- 
scribes Washington's 
chariot,  134;  describes 
Pohick  church,  157;  writes 
of  Williamsburg,  186-187 

Men  of  the  Revolution  (Wil- 
liamsburg), 183-184 

Mephistopheles,  spirit  of,  197 

Mercenaries  (Hessians) , 

Lord  Chatham  on,  269; 
hired,  278 

"Merrie  Christmas,"  366-387 

"Middle  Plantation,"  149, 
164,  168 

Middlebrook,  winter  quarters 
at,  300;  323 

Mifflin,  Gen.,  284;  receives 
Washington's  sword  and 
final  words,  382-385;  386- 

387 

Militia,  336 
"Mind       your       Business" 

(motto),  252 


472 


Index 


"Minute  Men,"  264 

Mississippi  River,  201 

Mohawk  Valley,  302 

Monacatoocha,  70 

Monckton,  Col.,  320 

Monmouth  Court  House, 
battle,  317 

Monongahela  River,  53 

Montcalm,  Gen.,  74,  201 

Montgomery,  Gen.,  277;  de- 
feat and  death  at  Quebec, 
277;  290 

Montreal,  and  Quebec,  cam- 
paign against,  277,  290 

Morgan,  Cap.  Daniel,  cap- 
tured at  Quebec,  277;  his 
riflemen,  333;  338 

Morris,  Gouverneur,  reforms 
currency,  406 

Morris,  Robert,  financier,  340 

Morristown,  winter  quarters 
at,  298;  325 

Morse,  J.  T.,  quoted  on 
Franklin,  350 

Moultrie,  Gen.,  285,  291,  339 

Mount  Vernon,  name  of,  13; 
51 ;  life  at,  125-145 ;  almost 
a  "tavern,"  142;  fox  hunt- 
ing, 152;  Sunday  at,  156; 
Washington's  visits  to,  356 ; 
improvements  to,  397; 
visitors  at,  433,  450 

Muhlenberg,  F.  A.,  speaker  of 
House,  428 

Mutiny  in  army,  363-366 

N 

Napoleon  admires  Wash- 
ington, 284 

National  Road,  407 

Navigation,  inland,  scheme 
of,  406 

Navigation  Act,  203,  204, 
205,  206;  enforced  by  Col- 
ville,  207 

Nelson,  Chancellor,  187 

Nelson,  Gen.,  322 

Neutrality,  Washington's 
policy  on,  429;  eulogised 
by  Fox,  434;  441 


Newburgh,  camp  at,  358,  364 
New  England,  its  mental  and 
moral  characteristics,  244, 
seqq.;  civilisation  of,  252 
"New  Forces,"  191-213 
Newport,  324;  Rochambeau's 

fleet  at,  326 

New  York,  Washington  com- 
mands   at,    279;    strategic 
importance    of,    279;    Old 
City     Hall,     283;     British 
troops,      291;      operations 
around,    292;    340;  Wash- 
ington inaugurated  at,  426 
Nicholas,  Robert  Carter,  171 
Nicholson    (royal  Governor), 
163;  moves  capital  to  Wil- 
liams burg,    163-164;    i 68, 
176 
Nicola,     Lewis,    Col.,    wants 

Washington  king,  358 
"Nomini  Hall,"  140 
North,    Lord,    255,    256;   his 
Manifesto,  278;  ministry  of, 
described  by  J.  R.  Green, 
289 

"Northern    Neck,"    the,   de- 
scribed by  Fithian,  140 
Northey    (whig  lawyer),  211 
"North- West  Territory,"  67 
Numbers     (troops     in      the 
Revolution) ,     their    char- 
acter, 270 

O 
Obelisk,    on    Bunker's    Hill, 

273 

O'Hara,  Gen.,  343 

Ohio  Company,  the,  67,  68, 
130 

Ohio  River,  48,  53;  Forks  of, 
58,  69 

"Old  Billy,"  Washington's 
body  servant,  452 

"  Old  '  Capitol"  (Williams- 
burg),  167-168;  described 
by  Hugh  Jones,  169-170; 
by  J.  E.  Cooke,  189 

"Old  Magazine"  (Williams- 
burg),  167 


Index 


473 


"Old  Point,"  48 

"Old  Williamsburg,"  163- 
191 ;  second  capital  of  Vir- 
ginia, 163;  built  in  form  of 
cypher,  168;  festivities  at, 
170 

"On  to  Yorktown,"  312-344 

Opponents  of  Henry's  "  Reso- 
lutions" 217 

Orderly  Book  (Washing- 
ton's), account  of  Arnold's 
treachery,  330;  thanks 
army,  365 ;  cessation  of 
hostilities,  371 

Osgood,  Samuel,  Postmaster- 
General  under  Washington, 
428 

Oswald  (British  Peace  Com- 
missioner), 366 

Otis,  James,  249 


Page,  John,  172 

Page,  Sir  John,  presents  com- 
munion service  to  Bruton 
Church,  1 88 

Paine,  Thomas,  to  Washing- 
ton, 347 

"Palace,"  (at  Williamsburg), 
189 

Paris,  Treaty  of    (1763),  200 

Parke,  family  of,  145 

Parker,  Sir  Peter,  at  Charles- 
ton, 291 

Parkman,  the  historian,  de- 
scribes Braddock's  march, 
92 

Parliament,  authority  of,  255 

Parliamentary  government 
in  America,  209 

"Parsons'  Case,"  179; Patrick 
Henry's  part  in,  219 

Party  feeling,  443 

Passy,  Franklin  at,  349 

Peace,  357,  366;  signed,  380 

Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  65 

Peale,  Charles  Wilson,  paints 
Washington's  portrait,  153 

Pendleton,  Edmund,  183, 
222;  delegate  to  Conven- 


tion, 1774,  261;  drafts 
Washington's  will,  267; 
President  of  Virginia  Con- 
vention of  1788,  420 

"Peninsula,  The"  (of  Vir- 
ginia), 171 

Pepys  on  tea,  241 

Percy,  Earl,  291 

Petitions  to  Parliament 
against  American  war,  276 

Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  ori- 
ginates at  William  and 
Mary  College,  1776,  183; 
1 88 

Philadelphia,  first  Revolu- 
tionary Convention  meets 
at  Carpenters'  Hall,  261; 
second  Revolutionary  Con- 
gress meets  at,  265;  cap- 
tured by  Howe,  307, 
evacuated  by  British,  317; 
Congress  again  at,  321; 
Washington  at,  356;  Fed- 
eral Convention  of  178 7  at, 
412 ;  Second  Congress  under 
Washington  meets  at,  432 

Philadelphia  Convention 
(1774),  261;  in  session  51 
days,  described  by  W. 
Wilson,  262-263 

Philipse,  Mary,  141 

Pickering,  442 

Pilgrim  pioneers,  195 

Pinckney,  453 

Pitcairn,  Maj.,  273 

Pitt,  William,  146;  secretary 
to  Charlton,  277;  346 

Pittsburg  (Fort  Duquesne), 
61 

Plymouth  Rock,  246 

Pocahontas,  164 

Pohick  Church,  156;  de- 
scribed by  Bishop  Meade, 

J57 

Poland,  300 

Pontiac,  203 

Population,  of  Virginia  under 
Dinwiddie,  112;  of  North 
America  during  Revolu- 
tion, 196;  256 


474 


Index 


Port-Bill  (Boston),  259 
Porto  Bello  captured,  28 
Potomac     River,    137,    151, 

156 

"Powder  Horn"  (see  "Old 
Magazine"),  176; robbed  of 
its  powder  by  Dunmore, 
265 

Powhatan,  King,  164 

Precedents,  210 

Preliminaries  of  Peace 
(signed),  367,  370 

Prescott,  Col.,  272 

Prescott,  Gen.,  exchanged 
for  Lee,  315 

Prince  Regent,  the,  Thack- 
eray on,  383-384 

Princeton,  battle  of,  294; 
Congress  flees  to,  366; 
Washington's  "Farewell" 
at,  379 

Principles  of  Union  (Wash- 
ington's), 372-373 

Privy  Council,  208 

Provost,  Dr.  Samuel,  428 

Pryor,  Mrs.  Roger,  describes 
Washington's  boyhood,  26, 
27,  28 

Pulaski,  299,  300 

Puritanism,  247 

Putnam,  Gen.,  272;  com- 
mands centre  at  Boston, 
276 


Q 

Buartering  of  troops,  260 
uebec,      death     of     Mont- 
gomery at,  277;  290 
Queen     Anne,     distinguishes 

the  Parkes,  145;  210 
Queen  Charlotte,   Miss   Bur- 

ney  on,  290 
Quincy,  Josiah,  249 

R 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  20 


"Raleigh  Tavern"  (Wil- 
liamsburg),  150;  Apollo 
Room  at,  175,  188,  261 

Rales,  Col.,  mortally 
wounded,  296 

Randolph,  Edmund,  anec- 
dote of  Washington,  130; 
incident,  189;  Governor  of 
Virginia,  opposes  Federal 
Constitution  of  1787,  417; 
Attorney-General  under 
Washington,  428;  urges 
Washington's  re-election, 
439;  accused  of  bribe  tak- 
ing, 442 

Randolph,  John,  Attorney- 
General,  171,  187;  "Spuri- 
ous Letters"  attributed  to, 
316 

Randolph,  Sir  John,  father 
of  John  and  Peyton,  187 

Randolph,  Col.  Peter,  172 

Randolph,  Peyton,  171;  pres- 
ident of  First  Continental 
Congress,  176;  187;  anger 
at  passage  of  Henry's 
"Resolutions,"  221;  dele- 
gate to  Convention,  1774, 
261;  chosen  president  of 
Philadelphia  Convention, 
262 

Rappahannock    River,  152 

Rawdon,  Lord,  337 

Raymond  (whig  lawyer) , 
211 

Raynal,  Abbe,  347 

Rayneval,  396 

"  Redemptioners,"  14 

Redskins,  the,  2,  80,  94,  109 

Reed,  Joseph,  opinion  of 
Virginians,  262 ;  offered 
bribe,  315 

Regiments   ("Sam  Adams's), 

255 
Religion,  Washington's,  159; 

160,  371,  373-374;  Trevel- 

yan  on, 374-377; 378,  385- 

386,  440 

Repeal  of  Stamp  Act,  249 
Representation,  255,  256 


Index 


475 


"Resolutions"    of    Patrick 
Henry,  215 

"Resolves,"  215-217 

Revenue,  210 

Revenue  Acts,  204 

Revere,  Paul,  249;  "Mer- 
cury" of  the  Revolution, 
265 

Revolutionary  Congress  (ad), 
May  10,  1775,  265 

Richmond,  third  capital  of 
Virginia,  proposed  by 
Jefferson,  171;  177 

Riedesel,  301 

Riedesel,  Baroness,  describes 
Burgoyne's  surrender,  305- 
306 

Robertson,  the  historian, 
opinion  of  Americans,  254 

Robinson,  Speaker,  writes  to 
Washington  about  Din- 
widdie,  112;  formally 
thanks  Washington,  131; 
219 

Rochambeau,  Count,  299; 
arrives  with  fleet,  326;  at 
Newport,  340;  at  York- 
town,  343:361 

Rocheblave,  French  com- 
mander in  the  West,  391 

Rodney,  Admiral,  342;  de- 
feats De  Grasse,  359 

' '  Rough  Riders  of  the  Re- 
volution," 337 

Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  299 

"Rules  of  Civility,"  Wash- 
ington's, 13 

Rutledge,  of  South  Carolina, 
eloquence,  262;  Commis- 
sioner, 294 


St.  Clair,  Gen.,  301;  disaster 
to,  437 

St.  John,  277 

St.  Lawrence,  49,  207,  290 

St.  Paul's  Church  (New 
York)  attended  by  Wash- 
ington, 428 


St.    Peter's    Church     where 
Washington   was  married, 

I2O 

Salary     declined    by    Wash- 
ington, 273 
Salem,   capital   removed   to, 

259 

Sandy  Hook,  317 
Sandys,     George,    translates 

Ovid,  176 
Saratoga,  303 
Savannah,  fall  of,  320 
Scepticism      of      eighteenth 

century,  197 
Schuyler,  Gen.,  275,  277,  291 ; 

superseded  by  Gates,  303 ; 

in    Burgoyne's    surrender, 

304;  anecdote  of,  305-306 
Scotch  exiles  and  immigrants 

as  teachers,  14 
Scotch-Irish,  arrival  of,  62 
Scott,  Gen.  Charles,  180 
Scudder,    H.    E.,   quoted  on 

character  of  American  sol- 
diers, 270 
Sea-guard,  207 
Seal  of  Virginia,  185 
Sevier,  Col.,  338 
Seymour,    Attorney-General, 

of  Great  Britain,  181 
"Shades  of  Death,"  the,  92 
Shays'  Rebellion,  404 
Shelburne,  Lord,  436 
Shelby,  Col.,  338 
Shenandoah,    valley  of  the, 

23 

Sherman,    Roger,    on    com- 
mittee to  draft  Declaration 
of  Independence,  280 
Shippen,  Mary,  328 
Siege  of    Boston,  273,  276 
Siege  of  Yorktown,  342 
"Signers  of  the  Declaration," 

219 

Signing  of  Peace,  366 
Sinclair,  Sir  John,  93 
Six  Nations,  atrocities  of,  325 
Smith,  John,  164 
£mith,  Joshua  H.,  330 
Smuggling,  208 


476 


Index 


"Society  of  the  Cincinnati," 

37.8 

Soldiers  of  the  Revolution, 
their  number,  character, 
etc.,  270,  272,  297;  at 
Valley  Forge,  313 

"Sons  of  Liberty,"  143,  178, 
263 

"Soul  of  the  Revolution," 
described  by  John  Fiske, 
176 

South,  campaign  in,  307 

Southern  campaign,  326 

Spain,  311 

Spotswood,  Governor,  166; 
rebuilds  William  and  Mary 
College,  1 69 ;  170;  institutes 
order  of  "Knights  of  the 
Golden  Horse  Shoe,"  177; 

185 

Spurious  Letters,  316,  444 

Stamp  Act,  176;  debates  on, 
189;  Washington's  opinion 
of,  191;  192;  repeal  of, 
193;  Gov.  Fauquier  on, 
193—194;  194;  described  by 
Bancroft ,  212;  Walpole '  s 
opinion  of,  214;  Henry  on, 
218 

Stamps,  device  on,  242 

Standing  army,  204;  Wash- 
ington favours,  296 

Stapleton,  Capt.,  370 

Stark,  Col.,  272;  at  Benning- 
ton,  303 

Staten  Island,  Lord  Howe 
lands  on,  279;  293 

States-General    of     Holland, 

3" 

"States'  Rights"  party,    435 

Steuben,  Baron  von,  272, 
299,  300;  describes  army 
at  Valley  Forge,  314;  in 
the  South,  338;  379 

Stevens,  Col.,  336 

Stillwater,  303 

Stirling,  Lord,  317 

Strachey,     Peace    Commis- 
sioner, 366 


"  Struggle  Begins,  The"  256- 

282 

Stuart,  Gilbert,  248,  433 
Suffolk,    Lord,    rebuked    by 

Chatham,  295 

Sullivan,  Gen.,  285,  307,  325 
Sullivan,    William,   describes 

Washington's     receptions, 

43° 

"Summer  Isles,"  205 
Sumter,  Gen.,  336,  338 
Supreme  Court,  435 
Surrender  of  Burgoyne,  304; 

consequences,  310 
Surrender  of  Cornwallis,  342; 

described   by   eye-witness, 

343-344 

Susquehanna    River,  325 
"Swamp  foxes"  of  the  Revo- 
lution, 339 


Talleyrand,  451 

Tarleton,  Col.,  182,  336;  the 
barbarities  of,  338 

Tarrytown,  331 

Tax   (on  tea,  glass,  etc.),  249 

Taxation,  right  of,  209; 
Grenville's  opinion  of,  212; 
P.  Henry  on,  216;  growth 
of  Washington's  opinion 
on — his  letters,  224-238 

Taylor,  Zachary  (grand- 
father of  the  President), 
fets  surveyor's  license  at 
William  and  Mary  College, 

J75 

Tea,  duty  on.  233;  as  a  sym- 
bol of  tyranny,  240;  Pepys 
on,  241 ;  amount  imported, 
241;  amount  in  ware- 
houses, 2  43 ;  arrival  of,  at 
Boston,  254 

"Tea-Party,    The     Boston," 

249,    2IJO 

Tea  snips,  (Dartmouth, 
Eleanor,  Beaver),  254  ar- 
rival of,  254 


Index 


477 


Thacher's,  Dr.,  Diary,  de- 
scribes Washington,  321; 
Andre's  execution,  332;  on 
"Society  of  the  Cincin- 
nati," 378-379 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  opinion  of 
American  war  in  England, 
258;  describes  Washington, 
288;  contrasts  Prince  Re- 
gent and  Washington,  383- 

384 

Thanksgiving  Day  (the  first) , 
1789,  430 

Thompson,  Col.,  291 

Thompson,  Charles  (first 
clerk  of  Continental  Con- 
gress), 252 

Thomson,  Mr.,  426 

Ticonderoga,  277,  291,  301 

Tobacco,  20,  137;  planta- 
tions of,  151;  170,  174; 
"tobacco  question,"  219 

Tories,  described,  283;  de- 
nounced by  Watson,  315; 
exiled,  404 

Toryism,  255 

Townshend,  Charles,  pledges 
government  to  revenue  act, 
210;  favours  Stamp  Act, 
212 

"Treason,"  Patrick  Henry 
on,  218;  220 

Treaty  of  Alliance  (with 
France),  315 

Treaty  of  Paris  (1763),  200; 
effects  of,  203;  problems 
involved  in,  389 

Treaty  with  Spain,  442 

Trent,  William,  65 

Trenton,  battle  of,  294;   296 

Tripoli,  treaty  with,  447 

Trumbull,  Gov.,  of  Conn., 
275 

Trumbull    the  painter,  248 

Truro  Parish  (Pohick 

Church),  156-157;  Wash- 
ington a  vestryman  of, 

'5.9 

Tunis,  447,  452 

Turgot    on  Franklin,  381 


Tyler,  Moses  Coit,  describes 
P.  Henry's  "Resolutions" 
and  eloquence,  217-218; 


221-222 


"Tyrant,"   George     III      so 
designated   by   P.    Henry, 


U 

University   of   Virginia,    183 
"Unsmiling  Time,"  the,  297 

V 

Valley  Forge,  272,  300;  de- 
scribed, 312-314 

Vanbraam,  Jacob  inter- 
preter, 57,  74 

Varick,  Col.  Richard,  306 

Varlo  describes  Mount 
Vernon,  398-399 

Varus,  97 

Vergennes,  Count  de,  325, 
351;  on  Franklin,  381 

Verplanck  (on  the  Hudson), 
the  army  at,  361 

Villiers,  Coulon  de,  75 

Vincennes,  391 

"Vincit  qui  patitur,"  198 

Virginia,  described  by  Col. 
Robert  Beverley,  popula- 
tion, climate,  etc.,  18;  de- 
scribed by  Bruce,  23-24, 
etc.;  described  by  Percy, 
Whitaker,  Williams,  and 
Captain  Smith,  25;  popu- 
lation of,  178;  leadership 
in  Revolution,  194;  cam- 
paign in,  341 

"Virginia    Comedians,"    176 

Virginia  Convention,  (of 
1 788) ,  ratifies  Constitution, 
420;  its  members,  420 

Virginia  Gazette,  189 

"Virginia  Plan"  (Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States), 

4i7 

Volney,  the  philosopher,  451 
Voltaire,  spirit  of,   197;  239, 

299;  on  Franklin,  381;  404 


478 


Index 


Voyageur,  49,  198 

Vulture,   the    (British    ship), 

33° 

W 

Wakefield,  home  of  the 
Washingtons,  5,  10 

Wall  Street  (New  York) ,  De- 
claration of  Independence 
read  in,  283 

Walpole,  Horace,  66;  opinion 
of  Botetourt,  149-150;  of 
France,  202;  letter  to 
Horace  Mann,  214;  on 
Cornwallis's  surrender,  345 

•Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  212 

Wampum,  60 

War  Commission,  323 

Ward,  Gen.,  commands  the 
right  at  Boston,  276;  left 
in  command  at  Boston, 
279 

Warm     Springs       (Berkeley 

Count}'),  155 

Warren,  Dr.,  272,  273 

Warren,  Joseph,  249 

Washington,  Augustine, 
death,  10;  sons  of,  29 

Washington,  George,  birth,  4; 
education,  5 ;  boyhood 
home,  5;  amusements, 
learned  surveying,  n, 
12;  intended  for  the 
Navy,  29,  30;  "sweet- 
hearts" of,  32,  33;  writes 
verses,  35;  Journal,  38r45; 
education,  46-63;  Univer- 
sity, 46;  education  in 
woodcraft,  exploration,  sur- 
veying, etc.,  46-63  Journal 
of  his  mission  to  the 
French,  57,  58;  his  pay, 
68 ;  contrasted  with  Frank- 
lin, 84-85 ;  marries  Martha 
Custis,  5 1 ;  date  of  mar- 
riage, 123-124;  selected  by 
Governor  Dinwiddie,  53; 
aid-de-camp  to  Braddock, 
86-87 ;  letters  to  Braddock, 


87-88;  letters  on  Brad- 
dock's  defeat,  98-102;  his 
diplomacy,  62;  reports  to 
Dinwiddie  on  the  "Half 
King,"  70-74;  his  general 
correspondence,  104;  cap- 
tured at  Fort  Necessity,  7  7 ; 
Burgesses  vote  thanks,  7  7 ; 
account  of  Braddock' s  de- 
feat, 93-94;  major  and 
lieutenant-colonel,  59 ; 

writes  to  Burgesses  de- 
nouncing vice,  107 ;  to  Din- 
widdie, 108-109;  courtship 
and  marriage,  117;  abhors 
profanity,  106 ;  reads  burial 
service  over  Braddock, 
113;  illness,  113;  first  letter 
to  Martha  Custis,  114; 
married  probably  at  St. 
Peter's  church,  120;  chosen 
a  Burgess,  124;  modesty, 
131;  passion  for  horses, 
131;  Journal,  134;  chariot, 
134;  opinion  of  marriage, 
135;  accomplishments, 1 36; 
model  farmer,  146;  resigns 
colonelcy,  eulogised  by  fel- 
low officers,  1 47;  chancellor 
of  William  and  Mary  Col- 
lege, 149;  diaries,  150; love 
of  art,  etc. ,  1 5  2 ;  painted  by 
C.  W.  Peale,  153;  plans  to 
drain  Dismal  Swamp,  156; 
attends  Pohick  Church, 
156,  159;  navigation  of  the 
Potomac,  156;  James 
River  and  Kanawha  Canal 
project,  156;  advises  Lord 
Dunmore,  156;  how  he 
passes  Sunday,  156; attends 
Christ  Church,  Alexandria, 
after  Revolution,  159;  re- 
ligious opinions,  communi- 
cant, 159;  fasts,  159;  160; 
grief  at  Patsy  Custis's 
death,  161 ;  gets  surveyor's 
license  at  William  and 
Mary  College,  175;  writes 
to  Col.  Bouquet,  184; 


Index 


479 


Washington — Continued 
Stamp  Act,  191;  192;  re- 
peal of  Stamp  Act,  193, 
194;  letters  on  taxation 
without  representation, 
224-238;  suggests  "boy- 
cotting,'^ 25  ;  letter  from  G. 
Mason,  228-230;  letters  to 
Bryan  Fairfax  on  taxa- 
tion, 230-238;  opinion  of 
duties  on  tea,  233 ;  criticises 
Gage  at  Boston,  234;  tea 
drinker,  241;  autograph 
will,  260;  fasts,  261;  dele- 
gate to  Convention,  261; 
sets  out  for  Philadelphia, 
261;  Henry's  opinion  of 
Col.  Washington,  262; 
commander  -  in  -  chief  of 
American  armies,  265; 
letter  to  Mrs.  Martha 
Washington,  announcing 
appointment  as  com- 
mander-in  chief,  266;  will, 
267;  arrival  at  Boston, 
271;  declines  salary,  273; 
personal  appearance,  274; 
originates  dispatch-system 
to  Congress,  275;  Congress 
thanks  him  and  Harvard 
confers  LL.D.,  278;  rides 
to  Philadelphia,  279;  plots 
against,  283;  "Fabian 
Policy,"  284;  military  ca- 
pacity, 285;  at  New  York, 
292;  evacuates  New  York, 
293;  favours  standing 
army,  296;  appointed  mili- 
tary dictator,  296;  at  Mor- 
ristown,  299;  at  Valley 
Forge,  312-314;  described 
foreigner,  316;  plots 
against,  316;  at  Monmouth 
Court  House,  317;  Lee's 
treachery,  318;  described 
by  Thacher,  321;  by 
Franklin's  daughter,  324; 
Luzerne's  opinion  of,  325; 
fears  disunion,  328;  repri- 
mands Arnold,  329;  de- 


scribes Arnold's  treachery, 
330;  Washington  described 
by  Chastellux,  331;  starts 
for  Yorktown,  340;  visits 
Mount  Vernon,  342;  tires 
first  gun  at  Yorktown,  342 ; 
letter  from  Tom  Paine, 
347;  answers,  348-349; 
death  of  "Jackie"  Custis, 
353 ;  visits  his  mother,  353 ; 
devotion  to,  356;  letter 
from  Col.  Nicola  suggesting 
him  as  king,  358;  answer, 
358;  doubts  Peace  Com- 
mission, 359;  writes  to 
McHenry,  360;  described, 
362 ;  quells  insurrection, 
364;  informs  Congress  of 
mutiny  in  the  army,  364; 
365 ;  writes  to  Greene,  367; 
on  terms  of  peace,  368; 
to  Hamilton,  368;  dreads 
disunion,  369;  receives 
terms  of  peace  from  Carle- 
ton,  369;  370;  Orderly 
Book,  371;  Circular  Letter 
to  Thirteen  States,  372- 
373;  his  religion,  church - 
manship,  etc.,  374-377; 
Fiske  on,  377;  President 
"Society  of  the  Cincin- 
nati," 379;  his  "Farewell" 
to  troops,  379;  resignation 
and  last  words  to  Congress, 
382-385;  returns  to  Mount 
Vernon,  387;  letter  to  B. 
Harrison,  395;  writes  to 
La  Fayette,  395;  described 
by  foreigner,  396;  elected 
Mason,  396 ;  his  correspond- 
ence, 397;  visit  from  La 
Fayette,  397;  described  by 
Varlo,  398-399 ;  German 
potentate  on,  400;  domes- 
tic habits  of,  400-401; 
letter  from  Knox  on  dis- 
union, 405 ;  plans  scheme  of 
inland  navigation,  406; 
letter  to  R.  H.  Lee  on, 
406,  407;  to  La  Fayette, 


480 


Index 


Washington — Continued 
on,  407;  from  La  Fayette 
on  the  powers  of  Congress, 
410;  answer,  410;  Commis- 
sioner to  Federal  Conven- 
tion, 412 ;  to  Madison,  412- 
413;  so  goes  Philadelphia, 
414;  President  of  Federal 
Convention,  415;  describes 
work  of,  421;  death  of  his 
mother,  423;  424;  elected 
President,  424;  to  Knoxon 
the  presidency,  425;  letter 
to  Crevecceur  on  presi- 
dency, 425;  leaves  Mount 
Vernon  for  Philadelphia, 
426;  inaugurated  President 
at  New  York,  426;  ap- 
points cabinet,  428;  estab- 
lishes code  of  etiquette, 
levees,  etc.,  428;  charac- 
teristics of  his  administra- 
tions, 429 ;  430 ;  lays  corner- 
stone of  Capitol,  432;  ill- 
ness, 432;  establishes  fiscal 
policy,  435 ;  policy  towards 
Indians,  437;  letters  from 
Hamilton,  Jefferson,  and 
Randolph  urging  re-elec- 
tion, 438;  answers,  440; 
re-elected,  440;  on  party 
feeling,  443 ;  his  Farewell 
Address,  445 ;  policies  de- 
scribed by  Marshall,  446; 
"Farmer  Washington," 
449;  occupations  at  Mount 
Vernon,  449;  last  days, 

450-453 

Washington,  Col.  John,  an- 
cestor of  Washington,  III 

Washington,  John  and  Law- 
rence, emigrants,  i 

Washington,  John  A.,  letter 
to,  describing  Braddock's 
defeat,  100-101 

Washington,  Lawrence,  of 
Chotank,  describes  Wash- 
ington's mother,  9 

Washington,  Lawrence,  half- 
brother  of  Washington,  13; 


dies,  leaves  estate  to 
George,  50 

Washington,  Lawrence  and 
Augustine,  interested  in 
Ohio  Company,  68 

Washington,  Lund,  overseer 
at  Mount  Vernon,  341 

Washington,  "Madam," 

Custis's  account  of,  7-8; 
personal  appearance,  10; 
353;  dies,  423 

Washington,  Mrs.  Martha, 
103-124;  communicant  of 
Episcopal  Church,  160; 
letter  from  Washington  an- 
nouncing appointment  as 
commander-in-chief,  266; 
at  Morristown,  299;  at 
Valley  Forge,  316 

Washington,  Mary,  mother  of 
George,  described,  28;  353; 
dies,  423 

Washington,  Mrs.  Mary,  de- 
scribed by  G.  W.  P.  Custis, 

354 

Washington,  "Patsy,"  33 

Washington,  Col.  William, 
338 

Washington  (the  ship) , 
brings  tidings  of  peace,  367 

Watson,  Elkanah,  denounces 
Tories,  315 

Wayne,  Gen.,  307 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  mod- 
esty contrasted  with 
Washington's,  268 

West,  the  Great,  197,  109 

Westmoreland,  49 

Westover,  144 

West  Point,  324,  325;  Arnold 
at,  329 

V^iig  lawyers    211 

Whiggism,  spirit  of,  257 

Whiskey  Rebellion,  436 

White  House,  the,  home  of 
Mrs.  Washington,  119 

Whitemarsh,  309 

White  Plains,  324 

"Widow  Custis."  character- 
istics, marriage  to  Wash- 


Index 


481 


ington,  etc.,  103-124;  first 
letter  from  Washington, 
114 

Wilderness,  the,  49,  59,  61, 
105,  197,  389-39° 

Wilkes,  John  (Lord  Mayor  of 
London),  276,  299 

Wilkinson,  Major,  announces 
Burgoyne's  surrender,  310 

William  and  Mary  College, 
149 ;  described  by  Burnaby, 
164-165;  described  by 
Lossing,  165;  modelled  by 
Sir  Christopher  Wren,  169; 
foundation  of,  173;  wealth 
and  age,  173;  alumni  of, 
174-175;  185-186;  build- 
ings burnt,  182;  con- 
trasted with  Harvard 
College,  248 

Williams,  Master,  59 

Williamsburg,  "Middle  Plan- 
tation," 55;  Burgesses 
meet  at,  149;  163-164; 
population,  177 

"Williamsburg  spirit,"  181, 
182-183 

Willis,  Col.,  founder  of 
Fredericks  burg,  1 3 

Willis,  Mrs.,  dances  with 
Washington,  356 

Willis,  Col.  Byrd,  account  of 
Washington's  school  days, 

«5 


Will's  Creek,  90 
Wilmington,  340;  evacuated 

by  British,  357 
Wilson       reads      Franklin's 

paper    at    Convention    of 

1787,  417 
Wilson,  Woodrow,   describes 

Lord     Fairfax,      36,      37; 

Martha   Washington,    123; 

Philadelphia     Convention, 

1774,  262-263 
Wirt,  William,  130 
Wolcott,  442 
Wolfe,  Gen.,  74,  201 
Women  of  Virginia,  116,  133 
Wren,        Sir        Christopher, 

models  William  and  Mary 

College,  169 

"  Writs  of  Assistance,"  176 
Wyatt,  Sir  Francis,  164 
Wythe,  George,  171;  poisoned 

by  his  nephew,  291 


Yeomanry  of  New  England 
and  New  York,  302 

York  River,  152,  164 

Yorktown,  Cornwallis  reaches 
342 ;  surrender  of  described 
by  eye-witness,  343~344'- 
consequences  of,  353 


Heroes  of  the  Nations. 


A  SERIES  of  biographical  studies  of  the  lives  and 
work  of  a  number  of  representative  historical  char- 
acters about  whom  have  gathered  the  great  traditions 
of  the  Nations  to  which  they  belonged,  and  who  have 
been  accepted,  in  many  instances,  as  types  of  the 
several  National  ideals.  With  the  life  of  each 
typical  character  will  be  presented  a  picture  of  the 
National  conditions  surrounding  him  during  his 
career. 

The  narratives  are  the  work  of  writers  who  are 
recognized  authorities  on  their  several  subjects,  and, 
while  thoroughly  trustworthy  as  history,  will  present 
picturesque  and  dramatic  "stories"  of  the  Men  and 
of  the  events  connected  with  them. 

To  the  Life  of  each  " Hero"  will  be  given  one  duo- 
decimo volume,  handsomely  printed  in  large  type, 
provided  with  maps  and  adequately  illustrated  ac- 
cording to  the  special  requirements  of  the  several 
subjects. 

1 2°,  cloth,  each 5/- 

Half  leather 6/- 

For  full  list  of  volumes  see  next  page. 


HEROES  OF  THE  NATIONS 


NELSON.     By  W.  Clark  Russell. 

GUSTAVUS  ADOLPHUS.     By  C. 
R.  L.  Fletcher. 

PERICLES.     By  Evelyn  Abbott. 

THEODORIC    THE    GOTH.     By 
Thomas  Hodgkin. 

SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY.     By  H.  R. 
Fox-Bourne. 

JULIUS  CAESAR.     By  W.  Warde 
Fowler. 

WYCLIF.     By  Lewis  Sergeant. 

NAPOLEON.     By     W.     O'Connor 

Morris. 

HENRY  OF  NAVARRE. 
F.  Willert. 


CICERO.     By 

Davidson. 


J.     L. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
Brooks. 


By  P. 
Strachan- 
By  Noah 


AUGUSTUS 
Firth. 


PRINCE  HENRY  (OF  PORTU- 
GAL) THE  NAVIGATOR. 
By  C.  R.  Beazley. 

JULIAN  THE  PHILOSOPHER. 
By  Alice  Gardner. 

LOUIS  XIV.     By  Arthur  Hassall. 

CHARLES  XII.  By  R.  Nisbet 
Bain. 

LORENZO  DE'  MEDICI.  By  Ed- 
ward Armstrong. 

JEANNE  D'ARC.  By  Mrs.  Oli- 
phant. 

CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  By 
Washington  Irving. 

ROBERT  THE  BRUCE.  By  Sir 
Herbert  Maxwell. 

HANNIBAL.     By     W.     O'Connor 

Morris. 
ULYSSES  S.  GRANT.     By  William 

Conant  Church. 

Other  volumes  in  preparation  are: 

MOLTKE.     By  Spencer  Wilkinson. 
By  Israel 


By     Henry 
By  H. 
By     Stanley     Lane- 
Hi 

By 

By  H.  W.  C. 
By 


ROBERT    E.     LEE. 
Alexander  White. 

THE  CID  CAMPEADOR. 
Butler  Clarke. 

SALADIN. 
Poole. 

BISMARCK.       By    J.    W.    Head- 
lam. 

ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT. 
Benjamin  I.  Wheeler. 

CHARLEMAGNE. 
Davis. 

OLIVER        CROMWELL. 
Charles  Firth. 

RICHELIEU.     By  James  B.   Per- 
kins. 

DANIEL  O'CONNELL.     By  Rob- 
ert Dunlop. 

SAINT     LOUIS     (Louis     IX.     of 
France).     By  Frederick  Perry. 

LORD   CHATHAM.     By    Walford 
Davis  Green. 

OWEN    GLYNDWR.     By   Arthur 
G.  Bradley. 

HENRY  V.     By  Charles  L.  Kings- 
ford. 

EDWARD  I. 


By  Edward  Jenks. 
C^SAR.      By  J.  B. 
By 


FREDERICK  THE  GREAT. 
W.  F.  Reddaway. 

WELLINGTON.     By  W.  O'Connor 
Morris 

CONSTANTINE  THE  GREAT.  By 

J.  B.  Firth. 
MOHAMMED.   D.  S.  Margoliouth. 


JUDAS  MACCABEUS. 
Abrahams. 

SOBIESKI.     By  F.  A.  Pollard. 

ALFRED  THE  TRUTHTELLER. 
By  Frederick  Perry. 


FREDERICK 

Smith. 


II.       By     A.      L. 


MARLBOROUGH. 
Oman. 


By  C.  W.  C. 


RICHARD  THE  LION-HEARTED 
By  T.  A.  Archer. 

WILLIAM    THE    SILENT.       By 

Ruth  Putnam. 

CHARLES     THE     BOLD.         By 
Ruth  Putnam. 

GREGORY  VII.     By  P.  Urquhart 


New  York— G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS,  PUBLISHERS— London 


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